The new Matt Damon movie “Green Zone” isn’t just a slam-bang adventure about the search for WMD in Iraq.
It’s also a Rorschach test for today’s movie critics.
The film declares the Bush administration knew all along that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, but that it lied to convince the public to embrace the subsequent invasion.
That’s not a spoiler. Nearly every film review puts that fact front and center. It’s the thrust of the whole movie.
But how critics react to that plot, and either ignore or detail the film’s flaws, provides a powerful lens from which to view a critic’s ideological blinders.
After all, the decision to invade Iraq was one of the most emotionally charged debates in modern history.
Suffice to say Roger Ebert gives the film four stars.
To be fair, most critics were able to systematically dissect the film, something that might not have been possible had the film been released during the Bush years.
WWTW reviewed the film over at PajamasMedia.com, and you can see for yourself where I stand. I found it a preposterous, politically naive slog that represents a step down from the creative team behind the last two “Bourne” features.
The movie has its merits, from a credible star turn by Damon to some truly majestic set designs meant to re-imagine Iraq at the start of the U.S.-led invasion.
But some ideologically rigid critics swallowed hard for the chance to embrace a movie which follows their factually challenged narrative. And, frankly, that doesn’t serve the movie going public.
The hopelessly biased J. Hoberman of the Village Voice drinks the film’s Kool Aid and grins a red-lipped smile:
Better late than never—a bang-bang pulse-pounder predicated on the Bush administration’s deliberate fabrication of WMD in Iraq.
Hoberman even insults his own audience while acknowledging the film’s oafish narrative.
As black and white as Helgeland’s script is, the movie may still be too nuanced for mass consumption.
The New York Times’ A. O. Scott also gleefully embraces the serially flawed film. (hat tip: Newsbusters.org). What’s worse is Scott can’t even handle the film’s simple truth – it’s a deeply ideological movie:
And the inevitable huffing and puffing about this movie’s supposedly left-wing or “anti-American” agenda has already begun.
Right-leaning film critic Sonny Bunch seems almost depressed to review the film, but does so with tongue planted in cheek regarding the director’s obsession with the shaky cam technique:
Instead of allowing the camera’s rapid movements to simulate the herky-jerky movements in the moment, why not have someone grab the audience’s heads and literally shake them silly? Motion sickness is all well and good: Why not instill some actual sickness?
The New York Post’s Kyle Smith pulls nary a punch in his scathing op-ed column about “Green Zone.”
Even for Hollywood, “Green Zone” is dumbfoundingly brazen in its effort to rewrite the facts.
One recurring theme in numerous “Green Zone” reviews is that the movie is hitting theaters too late. Too late for what? To impact a U.S. election? The Democratic candidate won in 2008, so how would it have changed matters?
And why should a highly fictional movie which trades conspiracy theories for cold, hard fact influence the hearts and minds of movie goers?
(Photo: Matt Damon re-teams with his “Bourne” director Paul Greengrass for the Iraq War drama “Green Zone.” Universal Pictures)
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
This sounds like McArthyism to me. If you like this movie, your political affinity is laid bare for the world to see? I think perpetuating this kind of theory is dangerous and I’m surprised to see a self-professed critic trying to spread it around. A critic’s motivations for why they liked or didn’t like a film should be of nobody’s concern other than to decide whether to lend credence to the review or not. Should I be careful of giving Milk a good review? Or if I thought that Schindler’s List was bad film?
Not sure why you’re getting steamed, Steve. I simply said the film helps reveal a critic’s ideological biases and gave several examples from both sides (left and right). It’s a sharp barometer because, frankly, it’s a deeply flawed film. I never said a critic shouldn’t give a film a good or bad review … although I still contend the job of a critic working for a mainstream outlet is to determine a film’s artistic worth and entertainment value first and foremost.
The vast majority of critics quickly ID’d the movies weaknesses.
Critics are certainly likely to agree or disagree over films for any number of reasons. But it’s my hypothesis that films like “Green Zone” are impacted by not only a critic’s taste but also how he or she sees the world.
That’s not steamed, that’s cautionary. I understand the curiosity factor here, I just don’t think political ideology is a fair subject of film criticism, unless it the director’s I guess.
I think that the context that any critic is approaching a film from can be gauged from just about any review. It seems to be more evident in their response to Green Zone, but that doesn’t make it any more fair game.
I think in recent years a critic’s political ideology has become more apparent in film reviews – or at least it’s become more obvious to this film critic. Witness the love Michael Moore has received … even though his technique is often shoddy (but entertaining) and he plays very fast and loose with the documentary format.
I think it can be helpful to know a critic’s ideological viewpoint up front, and the viewpoint in “Green Zone” is so integral to the story that it makes it easier to interpret reactions.
Christian defends well the ideological aspects of film criticism, so I have no need to pile on. I will, however, note that Christian did comment (rather approvingly) the artistic merits of “Green Zone,” and — as is his way — by pointing out aspects of a production that most critics ignore, including praise for Damon’s “star turn” and the crew’s ability to realistically recreate the scene of immediate, post-invasion Iraq.
But let’s have a wager. What’s the over/under on first weekend box office. I put it (generously) at $22 million.
Bush lied, really?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp6YmEevHE0
Steve, I was absolutely disgusted making the mistake to see Avatar, to watch a metaphor of our troops destroying the Twin Towers – their Tree of Life – so a bunch of anti-American leftists around the world could feel better about themselves, believing in the Loose Change / Truther / tinfoil-hat club historical revision of 9/11 and the War on Terror.
I don’t ever want to make the mistake again of watching movies made by leftist simpletons explaining why America sucks.
I will not see this DELIBERATE falsification of the facts about the Iraq war and why we removed Saddam Hussein.
And most of all – thank you Mr. Toto for giving me the heads up.
OK, it looks like the film will be a colossal flop, and is tracking under 50% at RT, so it looks like Christian nailed this one. I’ll never see it because Damon is a douchebag and I have better things to do with my money than support him (especially while he’s trashing the country and the military), but was interested in what the overall impression was.
Roger Ebert has been washed up for a decade, but he’s beginning to be a parody of a moron at this point. Substitute him for Michael Moore’s character in Team America and we couldn’t tell the difference. Complete and utter moonbat (a hateful one at that).
I just can’t take Ebert’s criticisms seriously after reading his positive review of “The Happening”. He lost all credibility after that debacle.
We’ve seen pplenty of recent examples where liberal movie critics will praise a horrible film simply because it tells them what they want to hear…Avatra anyone?
I served in the Gulf War and in OIF. The fact that left wing ideologues refuse to understand the methodology of ‘dual use’ technology (whereby organophosphate precursors of nerve agents are stockpiled as “pesticides” in military designed ammo bunkers surrounded by miles of barbed wire) that allows evil men to hide their WMD in broad daylight for idiot UN inspectors should forever preclude said pseudointellectuals from ever sitting at the big boy voting table again. They are too stupid to see the clear and present threat to our freedoms, and should enjoy the freedom to make asses of themselves with moronic anti-American films while the grown ups serve to keep our nation safe.
I stopped paying money to see Damon films a long time ago. He’s like the high school kid who takes a bargain basement philosophy course and is convinved that no one else has ever been able to perceive the complex interplay betwixt the philosophical luminaries of the past and their relevance (or lack thereof) to the problems of today. He’s deluded himself into believing he is a real life version of his ‘Good Will Hunting’ character.
Mat Damon is 5′8 with heels on.
If you repeat a lie (Bush lied, people died, ad infinitum, ad nauseum) enough times people will believe it. Hollywood certainly does believe the lie and is doing its best to perpetuate it. If Bush lied then every major intelligence agency in the world did too.
Babydoc,
Operation OIF was supposed to be called Operation Iraqi Liberation until a reporter pointed out what that spelled. I always wondered why Rumsfield and Cheney never played up the pesticide precursor angle you mentioned. It could have been that having the precursor and processing it was more hazardous, expensive than realistic. Ultimately Saddam wanted Americans and others to think he had the capacity. Saddam was the the consummate bluffer. He definitely miscalculated on that aspect. On the other side Bush/Cheney Inc. were counting on him to bluff. They were hoping rather than planning for a Glorious and inexpensive Operation. They had calculated it would drive down oil costs rather than up. They also hoped that the shock and awe campaign would snuff the put out all of the other Jihadist’s dreams.
Americans film makers aren’t always anti american as they are anti badly planned wars for several reasons. Rah Rah American movies tend to smack of kissing of anybody’s favorite leader’s butt. The public as under educated as they might be also see them as sycophantic, Goebbelesqe, in other words very unrealistic.
Nice review. The movie’s most grievous factual lapses are eclipsed by its fatuous dialog and ridiculous portrayal of military operations. It’s a bad movie for so many reasons, its politics being only a small part of the offense it visits upon the viewer. I’ve reviewed it as well, see it here http://libertariancomment.com/green-zone-a-sad-bad-farce/
“Too late for what?”
Too late to surrender Iraq.
Affleck always joked about Damon. When they were writing “Good Will Hunting,” they came up with the concept of a film about an ordinary guy slumming it through Boston, Damon’s character. Damon, never one to shun ego even before he was famous, came up with the idea of “Hey, let’s make my character a genius!”
One explanation, if the Bush administration was brilliant enough to fabricate or order the fabrication of such a staggering amount of intelligence, even that of foreign intelligence services, how come it didn’t have the wherewithal to stage WMD after the invasion? Was that Scott McClelland’s job? If we’re talking bad faith, how could something so inherently cynical and surreptitious be done on one hand, while ignoring something so simple as hauling a few trucks over the Kuwait border?