Greenzone

Imdb synopsis: Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in an unstable region.

This movie was not amazing. I thought it had potential: the production design, the actors involved-- but it lacked that little something. Something called character development. I'm not talking about a character arcs, or the rise and fall of the hero. This movie never explained Matt Damon's character. Yes, he's the good guy, fighting the system, bucking tradition and all that. But why? What drove him? What was his past? Why does he fight so hard? I thought the set up the relationships between characters very well, but it was almost as if the movie expected you to already know these people. Like they were stock characters. You certainly understood immediately the situation everyone was in. You know the type, you know the reactions, but the movie never gave you anything to explain why and how the character is the way he is. The movie may have focused on the situation- the war- but movies are driven by people, by characters- not events. You use the people to explain the event, make it matter to the viewer. And this movie never hit that.

Also, typical conversations about movies go a little something like this:

"So, Michael Scott's girlfriend told Bourne that the General was a bad guy. But Little Miss Sunshine's dad is trying to cover it all up, so he sends Lucius Malfoy to take him out, while Mad Eye Moody proposes working with the Iraqi Army."

And strangely, that all made sense.