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Roy Miller is a chief Warrant officer for the Us Army and he is assigned to clear areas of Weapons of Mass destruction, except he begins to notice a pattern, that every area they hit seems to be empty, even the ones that were marked as extremely high risk. As soon as Miller seems to be getting close to finding out some truths other people step in and Miller is expected to step aside and just allow them to figure about what needs to be done. Miller begins to put the pieces together and decides to go Rogue and do what needs to be done, so not only he knows the truth but all of America knows the truth.
Greengrass sets this film about as one of those films that is supposed to deliver small hints as they go along that things aren’t what they seem to be. He drops the major clue to early, and we know what Miller is going to find out, we know the whole reason for going to war will unravel before his is very eyes, so when Greengrass gives those not so subtle hints that something may be up we begin to roll our eyes. That is until Miller actually goes on the mission to find the truth. Once they stop dropping the silent hints then we can see this film for what it truly is. An anti war film that delivers a strong opposition to a cause many Americans have come to agree with. Greengrass creates perhaps one of the only films that’s foundation is rock solid dead set against the war. This film delivers perhaps the biggest anti-Iraq war message of any film to be released about the Iraq war.
The only thing I tend to see as way over the top is Miller was able to get information, classified information on the US army and basically do as he pleased with it. If Miller had this proof, or the American politicians even for one second thought he knew the truth, Miller would have been eliminated in an “accident” before everyone jumps on me for making that statement it happens everywhere else, and the Americans reasoning for being in Iraq or staying in Iraq this long have always been questionable and we as humans do not need a film to tell us this. Now I don’t want to get into this, because my stance on the war has nothing to do with what this film was trying to convey. Now for those who see this is purely anti-war propaganda remember to anything one believes in there will always be those who don’t agree. These war films are relevant whether they speak for or against the war.
The shaky camera syndrome that this film suffers from was one of the things that really irritated me, Greengrass was trying to make big strong political statements and during his electrifying action scenes it was impossible to tell who was firing at whom, and who has been shot and who hadn’t. After the shoot-outs and everything calmed down it went back to being 100 percent straight. Just one of those tiny things that took away from the no-hold barred lay it all on the line action scenes.
What I was hoping for was Matt Damon’s first chance to really convey a character since The Departed. This was Damon’s film, his character was the focal point, and what did it become, one of those single character fights for survival against an entire army looking to bring him down. Damon seemed like he came second to the films ultimate message, and I would say that would be a good thing if this film would have had the explosive ending where the American government suffers greatly from what he was able to find out. I know that didn’t happen in real life , but an ending to that affect would show that there are still people who care about what is right and what is wrong, and there are still people who care about having to be justified in what you are doing. In the end this film gave us these messages of anti-war but nothing came of it. This film lit a fuse early and the fuse burned for nearly 2 hours only to fizzle out before the grand explosion.
Matt Damon of course gives off a performance that is far from bad, but when you look back in about 10 years on what he has accomplished this will just fall into the category of just another performance in a war film that ultimately could not deliver.
6/10
