Green Zone

I saw Matt Damon's latest offering the other night and I have to say, I think Jason Bourne would've stomped all over Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller's ass.

True, but a cheap shot nonetheless. Really the problem with Green Zone is not that Damon wasn't running around throttling people enough but instead that director Paul Greengrass bit off a whole lot more than he could chew. The fruitless hunt for Saddam's stockpile of WMD's and the decision by the CPA to disband the Iraqi Army and thereby put lighter fluid to the insurgency remain to this day two of the essential story-lines in trying to understand Iraq and the nature of our involvement there. Unfortunately for the heretofore fearsome Greengrass/Damon combo they are also far too complex and fascinating to give justice to in a 2 hour Hollywood blockbuster.

If they really wanted to get at the heart of these issues they should have set this movie in Washington D.C. and not in Baghdad, since it was there that most of the fateful decisions (going to war in the first place, drastically reducing the number of troops from the original battle plan, ignoring the need for a significant post-conflict undertaking) were made which still continue to frame our involvement there even to this day.

As for the two other major ones which led us, or more acutely the Iraqi people, into the abyss--disbanding the Iraqi Army and the termination of all former Ba'ath Party members across government ministries--the simple fact is that they were made in a distinctly not-made-for-TV fashion as even President Bush explained as he was leaving office when he said, "The policy had been to keep the Iraqi Army intact; didn't happen."

When asked how he reacted to this history-making reversal he replied, "Yeah, I can't remember. I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?' "

Not exactly the type of material that makes one immediately think "THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PERFECT MATT DAMON VEHICLE" and yet serves perfectly as another vivid reminder that history is filled too often not with malice and vindictiveness but with indifference and laziness, especially when the president in question happens to think his brain is subservient to his "gut."

As it happens there is in fact a movie that came out recently which does take on all these issues with the kind of biting wit that can only mean it was made in Britain--it's called In the Loop and it's one of the smartest/funniest movies I've seen in a long time, made even funnier by the fact that there are two Scottish men in it who swear more often and with more passion than in just about any movie ever made.

Plus the girl from My Girl is in it. Watch this clip though, it will only serve to grow the universal love of the Scottish accent.