"The Green Zone," an action adventure set in Iraq, arrives courtesy of Jason Bourne's pedigree. It's not really a Bourne film, but it might as well be. Paul Greengrass, who directed the "Bourne" pictures "Supremacy" and "Ultimatum," and who has never met a hand-held camera he didn't like, teams up with his "Bourne" star Matt Damon to take a walk on the wild side searching for weapons of mass destruction that are nowhere to be found in a conquered Iraq.
The movie is billed as having been "inspired" by the bestselling "Imperial Life In The Emerald City," a non-fiction book by Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, and one which I am currently reading.
The enlightening volume details how poorly thought-out the post-invasion plan was for Iraq. Much of what happened in the early stages of the occupation was a prime example of bureaucratic bungling.
It turns out that if you knew someone who was willing to approve your Republican Party credentials, you had a shot at going to Iraq, no matter how unqualified you might be for the task to which you were assigned. Once there, you'd make a lot of money and pretty much live in isolation from the Iraqi people in the area known as "the green zone," a mini-America that strived hard to pretend it wasn't in the middle of Baghdad. Except, that is, when mortars would occasionally fly over the very high wall surrounding it.
Let's face it, bureaucracy, even if it malfunctions, would be boring to watch on screen. So director Greenglass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland have turned the book into Super Bourne.
Damon plays Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller as a zealot determined to find WMDs. He utters the line, "Let's get it right this time," and is willing to shoot almost anyone who stands in his way. There are a lot of false leads, and Damon scrunches his face in great displeasure so often that he begins to look like an angry Popeye.
He deals with a Pentagon official (Greg Kinnear) who is loosely based on the Coalition Provisional Authority's real-life Paul Bremer, and he laps up the encouragement from a CIA guy played by Brendan Gleeson.
The problem here is that the movie, for all its high-octane energy and fast editing, is not really about post-invasion Iraq. It's about blood and bullets. It's too slick to be truly tense. It comes across as manufactured. It's no "Hurt Locker."
However, "The Green Zone" is an attack on the stalwarts in the George W. Bush White House who insisted WMDs were somewhere in Iraq, even if they were being hidden in a laundromat. Greengrass, Helgeland and Damon have concocted a breathless hunt for mystery weapons that we already know weren't there. You sit and watch and wonder why Damon's running around like a chicken with his head cut off for something that didn't exist.
It's not really a movie about history, but rather a nearly two-hour episode of petulant politics. It comes across as an attempt to settle some scores, a temper tantrum at the level of "we'll show you who gets the last word." Did these gentlemen make the film just to hammer one more nail in the coffin containing Bush's bravado?
Trust me, the book is much more interesting.
"She's Out Of My League" is a continuation of the notion, believed in by some males in Hollywood, that drop-dead gorgeous women usually go for bland, unattractive guys.
The latest goofy nerd is a Pittsburgh airport security guard named Kirk, played by Jay Baruchel, who resembles Don Knotts. Through a plot contrivance involving a cell phone, he ends up being in a romance with one of the most beautiful women ever to merge with the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. Who needs the Ohio when you've got the breathtaking Molly?
Molly is played by Alice Eve, and you know what, she's not only lovely, but she's also smart, talented and successful. In fact, she's everything Kirk is not. Needless to say, Molly has broken up with her dreamboat of a boyfriend, which provides an opening for Kirk, who, thanks to his gaggle of hapless, disbelieving friends, loses whatever self-esteem he might have had.
A romantic comedy like this is all about the gross-out humor, and believe me, this film's got some doozies, including premature ejaculation and a dog, as well as testicles and a razor.
Truth be told, in spite of the overdone wacky supporting characters like Kirk's family members, there is a sweetness to the goings-on thanks to the good-natured personas of both Baruchel and Eve. I will attest to occasionally laughing and not being bored. However, "She's Out Of My League" is not up to the level of "American Pie" or "The Hangover."
If you don't have enough cliches in your life, here's a movie for you. "Our Family Wedding" involves upper-middle class adults acting like jackasses. It's as if Paul Robeson, Hattie McDaniel, Rita Moreno, Richard Pryor and Cheech and Chong never existed. The very American concept of the nation as melting pot and the decades-long efforts of the civil rights movement might as well be alien concepts. As for "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"? Well, I guess it was never made.
America Ferrera plays Lucia, a bright young woman from an old-fashioned Latino family. She goes to Columbia Law School. Lance Gross plays Marcus, a bright young man from a broken African-American family. He has his medical degree and is joining Doctors Without Borders.
The problem is that they plan to get married, much to the horror of their respective families. There is the expected strain on Lucia and Marcus' relationship and failed comic fodder involving wedding cakes, tuxedos and a goat. Do Latinos really bring live goats to their weddings?
Forest Whitaker plays Marcus' bug-eyed father as if he forgot how to act. Comic Carlos Mencia, as Lucia's father, can't act, so it doesn't matter how he displays his displeasure.
The movie is set in gorgeous areas of Los Angeles and everybody has a comfortable life. Clearly, the negative realities of harsh times have been overcome. So why the people behind this mess felt the need to revert to vestiges of an ugly past is anybody's guess.
The only good news is that Ferrera and Gross make a thoroughly believable couple and offer wonderful promise as movie stars. Somehow, insipid director Rick Famuyiwa didn't convince them to dip their characters into a vat of buffoonery.
"Fish Tank" is an independent feature from Great Britain that deserves to be seen. It is raw and uncompromising, with acting that sears the screen.
Screenwriter-director Andrea Arnold (an Oscar winner in 2005 for her live-action short "Wasp") tells a tough-as-nails story about Mia, a 15-year-old girl who is always in conflict with everyone around her, from her classmates to the neighbors in her English housing project.
Her youthful mother brings home a gentleman caller who is willing to help the family get ahead, and especially help Mia overcome her hostility to the world around her.
Director Arnold gets powerful performances from Katie Jarvis as Mia, Kierston Wareing as the mother, and Michael Fassbender as the new man in their lives.
"Fish Tank" is a gritty, unsettling, slice-of-life picture, not unlike the strong work of director Ken Loach.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 16, 2010 |