Is it finally safe for films about the Iraq war to not suck, or at least make a profit? Apparently. Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar winning The Hurt Locker proves the topical war can be translated into great cinema, and Paul Greengrass’ The Green Zone aims to make it mainstream entertainment. Granted, Greengrass did direct the warmly-received and maybe too timely United 93, but that was an exceptionally mature film walking a very tight rope between documentary and thriller.
Green Zone is a popcorn movie, really. But the real question is, “Can it make money?” Locker only earned $21 million, and other Iraq related films like Brothers and In the Valley of Elah didn’t make much either. Greengrass is banking American audiences feel like moviegoers back in 1978–three years after the fall of Saigon–who flocked to see Coming Home and The Deer Hunter because of frustration with the Vietnam War. But with the financially reliable Greengrass and Matt Damon combination (The Bourne Supremacy garnered $443 million), not to mention the 100+ million dollar budget, Zone might not only be successful, it could be a trend starter.
Damon defends his new film against pessimists saying, “We have made a genuine attempt to make a mainstream action thriller set in the real world [meaning, set in Iraq and not some imitation], and that’s what makes it really different … it’s a big movie.” Fair enough. Greengrass says, “There comes a point where the [war] experience starts to bleed through, into popular culture … where people are ready to go and feel it, distilled and played back to them.” He elaborates that Zone is “a blockbuster, action thriller” set in Iraq, not an “Iraq movie” using the war as a gimmick. In the end, Greengrass hopes Green Zone will allow other filmmakers to explore the war as well: “It is not so much that [Green Zone] will open the door, but I think will keep open a door that has to be kept open.” Obviously, the best way to keep a door open in Hollywood is stuff it with so much money it can’t close.
Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass on set of The Green Zone
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