Green zone

They're back! Director Paul Greengrass and action star Matt Damon. A junior US army officer is the maverick truth-seeker in a world where his government lies. Is this the fourth installment of the Bourne franchise? No, it's Green Zone, the filmed version of the Washington Post's Baghdad correspondent's book about the USA's "Imperial" follies during its invasion and early occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Brian Helgeland, who'd also worked on Bourne scripts, wrote the docudrama's screenplay, and crafted a thing of joy for editor and co-producer Christopher Rouse to hop, skip and jump through (as he'd already done to award-winning effect for Greengrass's Bourne Ultimatum and United 93). Another United 93 colleague, Barry Ackroyd, was the cinematographer (and stayed in the same award-gaining setting for The Hurt Locker). Other talents rejoined forces; Greengrass has developed a crack production team for action-adventure features.

Movie buffs have a natural tendency to be conspiracy theorists, or that's one of my excuses for preferring plotlines that dramatise conspiracies. The alternative explanation for human madness, the cock-up theory, works well for comedies but not for action movies.

Damon's character is, of course, very incredible if one stops to think about the plot developments. That's why the Greengrass-Rouse combo is so crucial: there's no time to analyse their non-stop action. Would a warrant officer in charge of one unit looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Baghdad actually try and find out why all Intel's supposed WMD sites held nothing sinister? Would he choose to go off-task to follow an unknown limping Iraqi's tip-off? Would the local CIA chief take him on board? Would the US political regime let him keep one step ahead and try to singlehandedly get a deal with the leading Baathist general?

Did the Wall Street Journal actually publish a pack of official WMD lies? Well, yes, that one I can believe; I'm a devout conspiracy theorist.

The Arabic actor portraying the anti-Saddam limper has a tough job with the least credible character. He's too easily absorbed in the plot by Damon's CWO and too many US military personnel as an official translator, and his role in the film's conclusion is a very incredible foregone conclusion. Igal Naor has a more solid role as the Sunni general awaiting a call from the Americans. If his face looks familiar, you've probably seen his fine impersonation of Hussein in the British TV House of Saddam 4-part series.

The three key American occupation officials are well played cliches too, by Greg Kinnear (the standard sneering plotter, Brendan Gleeson (customary overweight world-weary CIA station chief) and Jason Isaacs (obligatory vicious hit man). The most telling, ironic lines of dialogue appear to be direct quotations from the US Imperial consul, Paul Bremer and George W himself.

The Bush regime told itself the lies it wanted to hear, the movie reveals. Did US movie audiences want to hear that truth? Only to the box-office value of $35 million. To be fair, as even conspiracy theorists must try to be, the lack of sexual antics and a Bourne-like heroic conclusion obviously didn't help.