Green Zone

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=374976

There's a moment in the build-up to the (literally, of course) explosive finale to Green Zone when director Paul Greengrassfinally has to make the decision that he's been putting off throughout the bulk of the film: Matt Damon is being held at gunpoint when his adversary orders his execution. Will Damon live or die? 

(It sounds like a dumb question because Damon is the star of the film, an action film from the same team that made the last twoBourne movies -- of course he's going to live, right? But stay with us for a second here.) 

Now, unlike the adventures of Jason Bourne and James Bond (and Austin Powers for that matter), Green Zone isn't set in some make-believe land that passes for varying degrees of real depending on the inclinations of the particular franchise at any given time. No, we're meant to believe that Green Zone is set in Iraq in the days immediately following the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003 when the hunt for WMDs seemed to most observers to be more than just a flight of military-industrial-complex fancy.