Reviews – Page 32

The Green Zone

My rating for Green Zone: 6 / 10
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson
Studio: Universal Pictures / Working Title Productions

Welcome to another film ‘based on real-life stories written in a book’ regarding the Iraq War. This time, it’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. As we all know though, in the process of making a book into a movie it might have to stray considerably away from it. In this case, the film’s plot could be written on the back of a paper napkin.

Matt Damon is the quintessential good guy who fighting in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction, post-war – but on ‘coming up empty’ at all sites wants to find out why the intelligence reports are bad. He barks out snarky one-liners while staring into the distance pondering on what could’ve gone wrong. The rest of the army unit, of course, are ‘just there to do a job’ and don’t ‘care about the reasons’. Such depth of character indeed!

You know why The Hurt Locker is such a good film? Because it breaks from the mould. It showed us that a war movie doesn’t need to be frenetic “Battalion is oscar mike” stuff. Green Zone is practically the same as Body of Lies, The Kingdom et al. Nothing in these last three films stands out that I’ll be able to recall as specifically being from that film, three months down the line.

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Watch the theatrical release trailer for Green Zone

What Green Zone does excel in is, again, the frenetic “Battalion is oscar mike” stuff. Paul Greengrass pulls out his steadicam and dishes us fast-paced action film with fluid handheld footage. If this film was named Jason Bourne 4.0 instead, not much would’ve changed. You’ll enjoy your time in the theatre – if you like this genre – but it’s not a ‘memorable’ film as such.

Did Green Zone Kill the Bourne Franchise? (nymag.com)
Matt Damon’s War Film Green Zone Doesn’t Ring True (newsweek.com)

‘Buried Alive’ by Roy Hallums

My rating of Buried Alive by Roy Hallums: 7 / 10

Buried Alive is the story of Roy Hallums, an American civilian (albeit ex-military) contractor who was kidnapped while working in Iraq and spent almost two years in captivity. The very material that is covered means that you will be reading about a unique experience. How many people can claim to have been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents, and lived to tell the tale?

Reading the book is a breeze; I wrapped this up within a few hours. The narrative is in first person and flows quite easily. Hallums stays away from any sort of political commentary and focuses solely on his experience – which makes it so much more engaging for the common reader. It does feel at times that this conversational style of narrating events get in the way by becoming too wordy, but on the whole I felt that it makes the book better. I think though that the book has not been written by Hallums himself, as it mentions a ‘Audrey Hudson’ – so there’s a possibility that the book might be ghostwritten. The resilience of Hallums is beyond question though, for someone to be able to endure so much for such a long period.

Hallums speaks of the work that we was doing in Iraq, how he came about to be kidnapped and then about his time in captivity. At times, the narrative switches to how his family coped with the crisis. With these sections, you understand the pain of a family that is left in limbo – but at the same time the rational part of you understand why, for instance, media outlets did not give as much coverage as families in that situation would want, or why the government would’ve tried to kept things secret.

The only part that I felt lacking was the conclusion, which I feel was a bit rushed compared to the amount of print dedicated the events before rescue. Maybe it’s because of the timing of the book or a personal call on part of the author, but reading about how he coped post-event would have been interesting.

A unique book and a quick read.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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