The Forgotten Matt Damon Flop Defying Odds And Killing It On Netflix
Matt Damon is a prolific actor, known for big movies like "Good Will Hunting," "Saving Private Ryan," and the "Bourne" franchise. He's long been considered one of the most successful actors in Hollywood thanks to his impressive range and extensive repertoire, not to mention his longtime collaboration with Ben Affleck. While Damon has definitely had more than his fair share of shady moments, he remains an integral part of the film industry. In 2007, Damon was named Hollywood's most bankable star, with CBC reporting that "for every dollar he was paid for his last three roles, Damon brought in $29 U.S. of gross income."
Aside from his many great films, Damon has been part of several projects that didn't quite live up to their expectations. From all-around flops like "Suburbicon" to movies that got mostly average reviews, such as "Titan A.E.," Damon has seen every side of a movie's possible critical reception. Thankfully for him, one of his less popular movies, a wartime action thriller based on a nonfiction book, is getting another chance on Netflix — and so far, it's staying high on the streaming platform's trending list.
Green Zone is out of the red
The 2010 movie "Green Zone" was inspired by a book titled "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," written by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. The nonfiction novel described what it was like within the Green Zone (International Zone of Baghdad) during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S. military, and the subsequent transfer of power. The movie version of "Green Zone," which reunites Damon with "Bourne" director Paul Greengrass, follows U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon), who realizes that the intelligence the Pentagon is receiving is faulty, as all of their leads for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) end up going nowhere. Miller decides to take things into his own hands and begins hunting for WMD on his own, while uncovering military truths along the way.
Though "Green Zone" has a pretty average rating of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was considered a flop at the box office. While the main critique is that "Green Zone" strays a bit too far from the truth, some critics appreciated its commentary on the motivation behind the war in Iraq. Andrew O'Hagan of The Evening Standard went so far as to call it "one of the best war films ever made" because it "exposed the terrible lies that stood behind the decision of the U.S. and Britain to prosecute the war, and it does so in a way that is dramatically brilliant, morally complex and relentlessly thrilling."
Fans are enjoying Green Zone
Though recent reviews are still mixed, the majority of viewers have positive things to say about "Green Zone," with some taking to social media to offer their compliments. One Twitter user said they consider it to be an "underrated action movie," and yet another confessed that they "enjoyed it more than [they] expected to." Others have commented on how "Green Zone" shines a light on the conspiracies surrounding the war in Iraq, adding that Damon's stellar performance introduces another layer of excitement to the thrilling movie.
Audience critiques on Rotten Tomatoes are also varied, though most lean positive. Whether they have good or bad things to say about "Green Zone," most commentators can agree on one thing: Damon's acting is a strong point of the film. One reviewer succinctly said, "I'm a fan of Matt Damon, he is perfectly satisfactory in the role of Roy Miller; he holds things together."
Green Zone balances fact and fiction
When asked about the amount of truthfulness in the film during a 2010 interview, Damon told Collider, "There were no weapons in Iraq. That's true. A lot of people went there thinking there were. That's true, too. No one's really explained what the f*** happened. That's true too. But those are the central questions, I think, and that's the big — I mean, what we have in the movie is, yeah, we have a guy playing kind of a neocon type who actually invented a source, right? So that's not based on anything, that's obviously something that, for the movie, for the kind of architecture of a thriller to work, it needs to boil down to a couple characters ... that stuff is, uh, you know, obviously the movie."
On the other hand, Jason Best of Movie Talk recently critiqued the movie's fabrication of events, saying "With Greengrass at the helm, deploying his trademark, Bourne-style shaky camerawork and rapid-fire cutting, 'Green Zone' is as fast-paced as you'd expect, but the uneasy mix of fact and fiction ultimately works against the film."
Fans of the "Bourne" franchise's action-packed plot lines will likely enjoy seeing Damon in another thrilling role, while history and politics buffs will appreciate the social commentary.