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Movie Review: "The Green Zone"

by James Barringer
3/21/2010 / Entertainment

This essay is more than a traditional movie review. Not only will I evaluate the movie, I will analyze and comment on the core ideas in the movie, which necessitates revealing certain plot-critical information. If you really like being surprised by movies, you may want to stop here (but honestly, the movie is pretty paint-by-numbers, so if anything surprises you it's probably because you're not trying).

"The Green Zone," set in Baghdad immediately following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, follows Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon, who is magnetic as always) as he tries to find the weapons of mass destruction that formed the entire reason for the United States invading Iraq. At location after location, the WMDs that are supposed to be there are simply not there, and Miller eventually begins to wonder if they ever existed to begin with. As he goes deeper in his search for the truth, he encounters people, government agents, and branches of the military that are all working at cross-purposes to each other, pursuing their own goals and manipulating each other. At the center of all the controversy is an Iraqi general named al-Rawi, who some of them are trying to capture and others trying to kill.

The first thing that impacted me about the movie is the way that everyone had a different standard of morality. We come to find that al-Rawi met with US intelligence before the war and told them truthfully that there were no WMDs, but the intelligence officer, Clark Poundstone, lied and said that al-Rawi said there were WMDs. In Poundstone's morality, removing Saddam Hussein from office was so important that it was better to manipulate America into war than to be honest - the end justified the means. Poundstone wants al-Rawi dead to keep that lie from becoming public knowledge. Miller wants al-Rawi alive so that the truth can be found out. Miller's interpreter, Freddy, wants al-Rawi dead, but for a totally different reason; he resents what al-Rawi, the head of the military, did to the Iraqi public.

This is what happens when morality does not exist. In the absence of a clear, objective morality dictated by the God who created the universe, people feel free to form their own morality, doing whatever they want to and using whatever means they feel will help them achieve their goals. Was Poundstone right, or was Miller, or was Freddy - and on what grounds? How can you know, objectively, what is truly good or moral in any given situation? Unless you believe that God has already dictated morality and that it is concrete and not up for debate, you have no way of ever knowing what's right or wrong. When people get together who have no idea what is moral, you get the chaos and confusion of "The Green Zone": everyone wants something different and for different reasons, and they end up treating each other savagely in order to get their own way. That's not a world any of us want to live in.

The second thing that struck me is the idea that truth matters. Poundstone, you remember, believed that the end justified the means, that it was okay for him to deceive people because removing Saddam was worth it. Miller, at the end, makes a compelling argument for absolute truth, telling him, "The truth matters. The reason we went to war matters." The final line of the movie, typed on a computer screen is, "Let's get the story right this time." Truth is not in the eye of the beholder.

Similarly, we as Christians have an obligation to get the story right when it comes to humanity. The issue in "The Green Zone" is that each of the three people was telling a different story. Poundstone's was that the United States needed to remove a dangerous dictator. Miller's was that the government had an obligation to tell the American people the truth. Freddy's was that al-Rawi had retribution coming to him for his misdeeds as general. That's three different and irreconcilable stories. Similarly, there are a lot of stories floating around right now about people. Some believe that we're basically good, that if we try hard enough and do good enough that we'll get some kind of eternal reward. Others believe there's no afterlife at all, and think it's fine to pursue their own happiness no matter what it costs anyone else. Still others will claim with their lips that they don't believe such a philosophy, but the way they live proves that they do. So what's the true story?

The Bible explains, and real life proves, that there is only one right way to live, namely God's way, and that everything that's wrong with the world happens when we depart from God's way and try to live our own way instead (this is called sin). But just look at the movie. What happens when you have three people pursuing different goals for different reasons? Chaos and conflict, right? All you have to do is look at the world to see the damage done when people selfishly pursue their own goals and whatever they think will make them happy. That's all the proof you need that sin is what's wrong with humanity. We are, of course, not strong enough to handle our own sin on our own, which is why our salvation can only come through the death and resurrection of Christ, which reconciles us to God. I realize that in this day and age, talking about sin is not very popular, nor is claiming that Christ is the only way to salvation. But if you look at what the Bible says about sin, and then you look at the world, you know the Bible is telling the truth, and if the truth matters, then we need to make sure - just like Roy Miller urges us - that we get the story straight.

The final message of the movie is that war is serious. It's not something we should rush into simply because OOH-RAH AMERICA, which (at least to the movie's writers) seemed a major part of why we went over in 2003, so soon after the September 11 attacks. We grieve the more than four thousand American soldiers killed in Iraq. We grieve the tens of thousands - some say hundreds of thousands - of Iraqis who were killed without ever having a chance to hear the gospel message. We grieve the thousands of soldiers who come home with post-traumatic stress disorder, and we grieve the millions of Iraqi men, women, and children who huddled in corners terrified while American bombs rocked their cities. War doesn't just kill people; it steals the innocence of whole generations. It ruins the lives that it doesn't end. It has vacuumed up, as of the time of this writing, almost one trillion dollars - $1,000,000,000,000, which could have been used to pay for food and schools and clothes and medicine for Iraqi people if it weren't buying guns and bullets and bombs and helicopters instead.

There is a lot of thought-provoking content in this comparatively short (less than two hour) movie, which is rated R for the rather predictable reasons of strong language and war-related violence. Yet war, perhaps more than any other scenario because there is so much on the line, really provides a gripping backdrop for this human drama and the chaos that happens to people who are not anchored by the truth and moral direction of an infinite and personal God. If you like to watch movies and ask yourself, "How would this movie have been different if everyone was a Christian," then "The Green Zone" is definitely for you.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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