With The Hurt Locker cleaning up at the Oscars, it looks like war films are back with a bang. Hoping to make an impact in its own right is this war thriller directed by Brit Paul Greengrass. Signing up for acting duties is none other than his Bourne star Matt Damon.

It’s 2003 and US troops are actively seeking the whereabouts of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Heading one of these teams is Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon); he soon becomes disillusioned however, when the Intel he is given leads him to dead end after dead end.

During one of these pointless checks, Miller is approached by an Iraqi named Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), who informs him that he saw some shifty types with guns held up in a house nearby. Deciding to take a chance and believe him, Miller takes his team to investigate only to find that it is a meeting held by members of the old regime in Iraq – including one of Saddam’s right hand military men.

Unfortunately for Miller, he escapes, but he does manage to capture some of his men. Just as he’s about to take them away, another army unit, led by the hot-headed Briggs (Jason Isaacs) swarm in with orders to take them in for questioning.

It soon dawns on Miller that there are wheels in motion within the US army that he’s not a part of, creating a blur as to who’s pulling who’s strings and to what end?

I think we took a wrong turn. Is that Brent Cross shopping centre over there?

Having already worked together on two of the Bourne films, it’s safe to assume that Greengrass and Damon get along. The film is also based on Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, and adapted for the screen by Oscar-winning writer Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential). All in all then, it has a fine pedigree. Sadly though, that can never guarantee a film of quality.

Green Zone suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Despite having a now proven action star in the way of Matt Damon in the lead, it falls flat as an action flick. It also doesn’t have much in the way of thrills to be described as a thriller. What it does have a lot of though are Unsteady-cam shots galore; it seems the biggest casualty of war films of late is a trusty tri-pod. The camera shake is supposed to add realism, in a mock documentary type of fashion, but audiences are a little smarter than that these days and can cope with a steady shot and the horrors of war simultaneously, thank you very much.

Where it really loses its way is with its story; at best it’s clumsy. Most of the time though, it’s just plan confusing. It’s all very well Damon’s character being lost in confusion, but keeping the audience in the dark as well doesn’t help. Is the bad man really bad, or is he actually good? Oh wait, he’s bad. Or is he? Obviously war is never black or white, but the pages these film scripts are written on are and therefore should aim to include a modicum of clarity at the very least.

Damon does his best, but as characters go, his is pretty bland. He has no back story, so we have to root for him throughout, despite really having any sense of who he is or what he stands for. He simply wants to get to the truth, and that’s about all we’re given.

For some peculiar reason, Jason Isaacs is wearing a weird urban, handlebar moustache, which makes him look like he’s auditioning to be a member of East 17 on a reunion tour. Apparently there’s a fine line between macho and ridiculous and you can find Isaacs wearing it on his face.

As most of the world already knows, there were no WMD’s. So when Damon’s character goes looking for them, we’re slightly less surprised with his findings than he is. By changing tact in the second half, Greengrass makes things unnecessarily confusing, with Miller’s character’s search for answers, simply leaving the audiences with more questions.

If it knew what it wanted to be from the outset, Green Zone could have been better than just average; it’s a disappointing experience, particularly considering the considerable talent on board. Ultimately it lacks that punch that a war film needs to pack these days to make a lasting impression.