Green Zone (B)

(Rated R for ongoing profanity & violence):  To begin with, to attend this film demands some sort of ear protection; the sound has been upped to such an extreme that the first third of the theatre was roped off for fear of damaging eardrums.  Explosive action, shouted dialogs and John Powell's hard-driving, drum-heavy score, indeed, challenge even the hard-of-hearing & there's no getting away from it in theatres capable of surrounding the audience with unending sound at top levels.

All that, plus the amazingly realistic, detailed visual ambiance - combat gear, Iraqis in mufti (speaking in variations of the indigent language), rubble-strewn streets, bombed-out buildings & dust everywhere, all captured with hand-held cameras that never stop shaking - add up to a cacophony of sights & sounds to make the "feel" of the movie more documentary than controlled drama.  And it is effective.

Almost subsidiary is the story taken from Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book, here co-authored with writer Brian Helgeland, about an idealistic Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) who begins to realize that the search for WMDs is a governmental ruse - by both our administration & some local officials - to give verity to the war.  Or something like that - the first half of the movie being a jumble of successive actions that point to the second half, which becomes in a sense a sequel to the Bourne movies (also starring Damon & also directed by Paul Greengrass) in its melodramatic exposés, chases, & scramble to the finish.

Set in the chaotic early days of the Iraqi war, a time when no one could be trusted (except perhaps Miller & a CIA rep (Brendan Gleeson) & a well-meaning Iraqi (Khalid Abdalla) - each with his own personal motives & biases.  Toss in the ubiquitous reporter (Amy Ryan), a Special Forces thug (Jason Isaacs) & a few top level servants of the administration, and you have all the makings of a standard war-in-the-streets drama with good guys competing with the covert bad guys.

The marvel of this 115-minute series of street fights, explosive action & intermittent revelations is, as I've suggested, in its cinematic ambiance - all caught with Barry Ackroyd's cameras from every angle, edited in dizzying hiccup fashion by Christopher Rouse - while Greengrass directs his cast firmly with a consistently sure hand.

If the movie does nothing more than present a graphic, detailed look at the ravages of this senseless war in its drive for absolute realism, by bringing minutely detailed, sobering perceptions, it works to leave one with layers of horror that reduce the plot to second place.  It comes as close as possible to rub our noses in the senselessness & hellishness of a chaotic war, of its disorienting nature on everyone involved - Americans & Iraqis alike.

While the film was shot in Spain & Morocco with on location long shots of Baghdad intermixed, the feel of this war is indelibly  seamless & present.  It's that devastatingly powerful realistic overlay, and not just the action-type plot, that makes it worth experiencing.  (Grade:  B)