Michael Williams in Messiest Objects:
My favorite scene is when Matt Damon, after some intense action out in the chaotic streets of Baghdad, walks out behind the Republican Palace which we were using as the US “Embassy” to meet his CIA contact by the swimming pool. The look on his face and on his men's faces is perfect. Utter confusion, as though they were wondering, “did we pass out and wake up back in the US somewhere?” That disconnect was spot on and is something I not only experienced in the Green Zone but witnessed on not a few members of the armed forces' faces in that very spot. Not that I was really ever “in the shit”, but it was a pretty unreal place and having spent some time out in downtown Baghdad, the Green Zone (officially called The International Zone; Green Zone was “local” slang and I myself always preferred to call it the Interzone) was undeniably a real-life study in stark contrast. Employees of the DoD hanging out and sunbathing in speedos and bikinis, drinking beer and carrying on as though they were trying to really be in Key West, while a half mile away on the other side of mortar walls was a city in pain and disaster at every turn. That to me was what the film captures best all around, and specifically so in this scene.
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