Smells Like Mr Bourne’s Holiday 

Director: Paul Greengrass

Main Cast: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Khalid Abdallah, Igal Naor, Jason Isaacs, Amy Ryan

Thumping thriller in post-invasion Baghdad featuring a WMD-hunting team led by Roy Miller (Damon) who becomes embroiled in the cross-wired agendas of US Intelligence Agents. An action-espionage movie that partners the ‘Bourne’ franchise in style but is set against the rocket-propelled confusion of Iraq under the provisional coalition government. Compelling and audacious but with monotonously high tempo and relentless soundtrack that at times leaves you gasping for variety. The WMD backdrop feels a little politically try-hard and a somewhat stale bandwagon.

Cinema Release Date: 12^th March 2010

It’s 2003 and newly overturned Baghdad is in Bedlam with looting and streetfights aplenty. Roy Miller (Damon) is a chief warrant officer leading a small team despatched to find WMDs. But the intelligence is bad and there isn’t a neutron bomb in sight. When Miller airs his concerns, CIA station chief Martin Brown (Gleeson), an old-school truth-finder, takes Miller on as an agent to help break through a barrage of secrets and stabilise the fragile Baghdad.

However, Defense Intelligence Agent and Chief Under-the-Carpet Sweeper, Clark Poundstone (Kinnear) is mighty keen for very little to be uncovered at all, and the new Iraq to come very quickly under the full control of the Coalition and a puppet government. Poundstone’s pet hooligan, special forces’ Lt. Briggs is deployed to keep Miller out of the picture and prevent the truth about General Al Rawi (Naor), the Jack of Clubs, being revealed. And so ensues Bournesque double-crossing and fast-shooting action, with Miller’s translator, a hapless if brave civilian (Abdallah), in tow.

Greengrass is quick to admit “This is not a movie about the war in Iraq… It’s a thriller set in Iraq.” So don’t expect a comprehensive overview of the political situation, or a balanced and detailed portrayal of the atmosphere in the forces at that time. Those of you who relish the banality of soldier down-time in films such as Jarhead and the recent Hurt Locker, may be a little surprised at Miller’s ability to hunt bad guys 24/7.

The production team are, however, keen to protest much about the reality of the situations portrayed, and the number of experts wheeled in to assist with this. Scenes such as the semi-organised chaos of hoards of looters pulling out objects from a potential WMD site attest to this attention to detail. And Greengrass is not afraid of throwaway moments and the intersecting dialogue so central to the immersive nature of United 93. His multi-textured build-up of a scene combined with unsteady and almost journalistic cinematography creates a genuine feeling of the confusion and rapidly changing nature of the action.

Amongst the research was Chandrasekaran’s best-selling non-fiction book ‘Imperial Life’. It documents life inside the Green Zone, which before the war was Saddam’s military stronghold, and after invasion its Republican Palace is adopted as the US provisional government headquarters. Luxurious life here is a striking contrast to life and death skirmishes so close at hand, and when Miller visits he looks almost as incongruous at the poolside as Lawrence of Arabia in the Cairo military headquarters. 

These fleeting moments of absurd reality are few, and are prevented from holding up the blistering narrative with fast twists and Miller jumping to amazingly accurate conclusions with minimal information. This is a thriller with breakneck pace, and well-executed set-pieces. But rather like Poundstone himself, Greengrass has imposed a top-down approach to Iraq, selecting the WMD hotpot scenario and imposing the Bourne-style thriller upon it. Either sit back and take it at face value, or risk being disappointed you’re not watching The Hurt Locker.

Country of Origin: UK/USA/Spain/France

Running Time: 114min

Certificate: 15