Scott Spiegel

“Green Zone comes from the British production company Working Title and English director Paul Greengrass, but it stars American actor Matt Damon and represents the new phenomenon of homegrown Anti-Americanism… Greengrass and Damon concoct a Bush-bashing action movie that (way-late into Obama’s first term and continuance of the war) pretends to rip the lid off the Iraq War’s Weapons of Mass Destruction concept. ‘Shock and Awe’ is mentioned to cue audience skepticism, yet that’s also how Working Title, Greengrass and Damon work: They use mainstream movie industry shock-and-awe to brainwash audience sympathy…

“Damon portrays Sgt. Ray Miller… chosen to find WMDs in the first days of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. When his first assignment comes up empty, Miller is instantly skeptical—like a reader of The Nation…

“Miller’s a phantom figure with neither personal background nor political motivation. He’s simply correct; the kind of protagonist that could only arise from the Left’s Bush-era sense of resentment and self-righteousness…

“Stuck in Bush-era cynicism, Greengrass and Damon ignore the success of the military surge but question the legitimacy of WMD claims…

“Miller appeals to those hung up on WMDs yet complacent about Saddam Hussein’s treachery and willfully naive about American political interests. The big problem Green Zone… represents is that these filmmakers, like the makers of The Hurt Locker, no longer know how to characterize heroism. The Hurt Locker’s psychotic G.I. now proves his moral superiority in Green Zone by becoming a traitorous/valorous spy.”

http://www.nypress.com/article-20994-bourne-a-spy.html

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