The Green Zone: Review Roundup

While the film hasn't exactly grabbed the attention of the populace, it certainly has grabbed my attention. Brought to us by Matt Damon, Paul Greengrass, and Brian Helgaland (three of my favorite people making films), my contention is that Green Zone is a liberal fantasy that revises and simplifies the historical reasons for entering the Iraq War turning Matt Damon's Chief Miller into a superhero finding out the truth.

While that's the view that I take out of the film, there are plenty other voices out there, and below are a few of the other voices that I found interesting.


Kansas City.Com: A positive review from Robert Butler

Excerpt: "The film is particularly good at capturing the disconnect of life in Baghdad’s protected Green Zone. In Saddam’s former palace, Washington interns in bikinis lounge poolside with beers, cradling automatic weapons and listening to pop music. A few blocks away American soldiers are fighting and dying.

This movie is so focused on plot and breathless action that the acting is incidental. Unlike the Oscar-winning “Hurt Locker, these characters haven’t time for a significant emotional arc — they’re too busy running and shooting.

Still, Kinnear is a despicable villain, and Damon is his usual charismatic self. Amy Ryan has a few good moments as a reporter whose sloppy pre-war reporting about WMDs paved the way for the conflict, and Khalid Abdalla (who was born in Scotland) is excellent as a Saddam-hating Iraq army veteran who teams up with Miller, serving as his translator and the film’s conscience.

Bottom line: “Green Zone” is high-octane speculative fiction with a political agenda. You can already hear Rush Limbaugh harrumphing.

Read more at: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/11/1803503/green-zone-laced-with-action-and.html

Inland Empire Weekly: Amy Nicholson makes a case that the film isn't simplified but in actuality distilled

Excerpt: "Green Zone is as smart of a thriller as you’re going to see on the Iraq War. (At least, until 2060 when an as-yet-unborn Quentin Tarantino will make his War on Terror Inglourious Basterds.) Inspired by former Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s first-hand account, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Green Zone distills—not simplifies—the clashing forces that dashed our chance of peace. (If, in fact, peace was ever even on the table.)...Green Zone is richer than Jason Bourne’s sweaty quest; though it’s a compressed fiction, it’s fair. Unlike GWB’s “With us or against us,” bluster, this doesn’t pretend that people are either good or bad. Everyone—even Naor’s deadly general—is self-righteously following their conscience. And consciences have consequences."

Read More At: http://www.ieweekly.com/cms/story/detail/green_zone/3101/

Film Freak Central: A mixed review from Ian Pugh.

Excerpt: "Green Zone feels like a self-conscious relic of the previous decade and there's nothing to convince us of otherwise, particularly because it applies tired aesthetics to an impotent tirade about the American invasion of Iraq. At its best, the picture suggests an extraneous coda to the Greengrass-completed Bourne trilogy, without the benefit of its mystery, its forward momentum, or its looming implications."


Read more at: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/greenzone.htm


Decent Films Guide: A negative review by Steven D. Graydanus

Excerpt: "Reviewing the Rob Marshall film Memoirs of a Geisha, Roger Ebert wrote, “I suspect that the more you know about Japan and movies, the less you will enjoy Memoirs of a Geisha.” This is such a useful critical rule of thumb that there ought to be a shorthand way of referring to movies fitting that description. I don’t suppose we can call them Geisha movies. No, probably not.

Still, let the reader understand when I suggest that Green Zone is a Geisha movie, in the sense that the more you know about Iraq and movies, the less you will enjoy it. I don’t know a lot about Iraq, and even I know too much for this movie."

Read More At: http://decentfilms.com/reviews/greenzone
There is also something else worth reading on his site regarding Green Zone http://decentfilms.com/blog/green-zone-kinnear-lied

The Part-Time Critic: My takes on the film

"Does Roger Ebert Really Not Care About Truth?": I wrote an earlier review of Roger Ebert's four star review, that can be found here.


My own personal video review of Green Zone can be found here

Sherlock Holmes Review Roundup

One of the things that I enjoy most about films is their ability to produce multiple interpretations and viewpoints. Some of those points I agree with and many of them I don't. However, I feel that by opening myself up to them I gain a broader and deeper perspective than the one I had before.

It is with that in mind that I am attempting a new feature where I roundup several reviews of a recent film, in order to gain a broader perspective beyond my review. Some of the reviews will be negative and some positive, but they all will be ones that I thought brought something interesting to the party.

With Sherlock Holmes, it seems as though there is great divide on the portrayal of Holmes himself. While most everyone agrees that Downey performs the role brilliantly, the biggest complaints come from those who disagree with the 'hyperactive' and 'witty' portrayal, as opposed to the stately and studious Holmes of tradition. Below is a roundup of reviews that all speak to their view on Holmes portrayal. Enjoy and feel free to share your thoughts.

Kyle Smith of the New York Post: Typically we agree on films, but this conservative writer feels Ritchie’s touch sinks the whole film
http://tinyurl.com/ye4w5lt

Excerpt: “Who the deuce decided to filter Sherlock Holmes through “Batman & Robin”? “Sherlock Holmes” dumbs down a century-old synonym for intelligence with S&M gags, witless sarcasm, murky bombast and twirling action-hero moves that belong in a ninja flick. Directed to do frantic American-buddy-movie shtick by Guy Ritchie, who has never before ruled a big-budget production, the normally brainy Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law compete rather than complement, each spewing his deductions like “Rain Man” meets “Good Will Hunting” instead of leading the audience through the elegant process of solving a mystery. Somebodytellthesedirectorsthattalkingfastdoesnotmakeyousoundsmart.”

Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Negative review that laments on the lack of ‘soul’ within this modern Sherlock
http://tinyurl.com/yeuv98d

Excerpt: “I'm all for Sherlock as a man of intense agility. Indeed, so was Conan Doyle, who described his cunning and eccentric sleuth as an ace bare-knuckle fighter who once dispatched his arch nemesis, Moriarty, in a flurry of martial arts. But Ritchie, mega-producer Joel Silver, and their (many) writers have left out an essential element: soul. Downey, who appears to have boned up on his Brit-speak by reviewing the collected works of Jeremy Irons (dry, deadpan, a little debauched), plays Holmes as a bipolar type (up when he's on a case, down when he's not) whose ability to size people up by use of deductive powers is reduced to nothing more than gimmickry.”

Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central: Positive and well articulated. I wish I could write like this guy - http://tinyurl.com/yd6y3ku
**Warning, he uses profanity in his review, and I have somewhat cleaned up the excerpt below

Excerpt: “As Holmes is long one of my favorite literary characters, I confess to being filled with something very much like delight by a picture that has the sense to know that Holmes is one sexy guy--a rock star who does drugs, seduces chicks with his prodigious (and unique) talents, wins fights, and spits at police. He's a Dickensian Batman, and if Ritchie did indeed use Nolan's redux as a template, he couldn't have chosen a cannier one.”

Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic: A strongly positive review
http://tinyurl.com/ycjbtzg

Excerpt: “Turns out there was no need to worry. Playing literature's greatest detective as a sort of self-loathing action hero, Downey has an absolute blast. And thanks to his performance in "Sherlock Holmes," so do we. Mind you, those who are put off by a depiction of Holmes as the sort of fellow who indulges in underground bare-knuckle boxing (he thinks that through as much as he does anything else) will have much to be put off by. Although this may be closer to Arthur Conan Doyle's original depiction of Holmes, audiences used to Basil Rathbone-like portrayals will be jarred. This is a rock-and-roll Holmes without the attendant music. In director Guy Ritchie's telling, Holmes still is off-the-charts brilliant. He's just a butt-kicker to boot.”

The Part-Time Critic: My mostly positive review -http://parttimecritic.blogspot.com/2009/12/sherlock-holmes-review.html

Excerpt: “The center of the film is the incredible performance of Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. Downey gives the most enjoyable and nuanced performance of a blockbuster hero since Depps’ Captain Jack Sparrow first waded upon shore…Despite his incredible skill and wit, Holmes is a fighter, gambler, and depressed addict that is generally unlikable when he’s not ‘on the case’…He is enjoyable here because the film makes no apologies for his character and isn’t afraid at showing the loneliness that stems from it…As entertaining as his deducing and fighting is, I find myself even more interested in how Holmes develops and overcomes his obvious flaws.”