Iraqi weapons are hard to find

GREEN ZONE (15) ****

When American and British forces withdraw completely from Iraq - currently seven years into the campaign - the lasting legacy won't be peace and democracy.

It will be a deep-rooted suspicion that the infamous weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the supposed justification for the invasion, never existed.

The ongoing Iraq inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, provided no firm answers.

Award-winning British filmmaker Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon, the driving forces behind The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, posit one scenario in this riveting thriller.

Based on the book Imperial Life In The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Green Zone is a breathless two hours of adrenaline-pumping action and political manoeuvring that places as much emphasis on emotionally charged dialogue as the set pieces.

The film opens with a deafening bang on March 19, 2003 in Baghdad as Saddam Hussein's trusted general, Al Rawi (Yigal Naor), flees his headquarters in the midst of an Allied blitzkrieg.

Four weeks later, US Army warrant officer Roy Miller (Damon) and his team careen through the war-torn capital on the hunt for WMDs. Yet again, they draw a blank and Miller voices his frustrations, suspecting bogus intelligence.

A tip-off from a disgruntled local, Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), leads Miller and his crew to a meeting of Saddam's high-ranking advisors including Al Rawi.

The general escapes but another man is apprehended and Miller uses Freddy as a translator to interrogate the suspect about a notebook in his possession.

"He says the book has names and locations of El Rawi's safe houses," reveals Freddy.

Returning to base, Miller bypasses scheming Pentagon official Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) and his minion Major Briggs (Jason Isaacs), and delivers the book to local CIA chief Gordon Brown (Brendan Gleeson), who asks for discretion.

"I thought we were all on the same side," replies Miller." Don't be naive," mocks Brown.

Green Zone is distinguished by Greengrass' tour-de-force direction, galloping through the streets of Baghdad with handheld cameras, so we remain uncomfortably close to Miller as he risks his life for a country he was entrusted to tear apart.

There is no better director of action sequences and we really feel like we are ducking for cover from enemy fire as pyrotechnic mayhem erupts around the cast.

Damon delivers a passionate performance as a soldier with a conscience who doesn't under-stand the full extent of the conspiracy.

Kinnear and Gleeson relish their roles as duplicitous political pawns and Abdalla curries sympathy as the Iraqi interloper, enraged by the arrogance of his so-called American saviours.

"It's not for you to decide what happens here," Freddy tells Miller.

We are certain his words will fall on deaf ears because the West knows best. Doesn't it?

DAMON SMITH

GUN HO: Matt Damon stars as chief warrant officer Roy Miller as he reunites with Bourne director Paul Greengrass

SCANDINAVIA creates ANOTHER KILLER THRILLER

the girl with the dragon tattoo (18) ****

For the second time in as many years, Scandinavian cinema comes up trumps with a stylish and invigorating thriller guaranteed to have audiences teetering excitedly on the edge of their seats.

In 2009, we were spellbound by the coming of age story Let The Right One In (Lat Den Ratte Komma In), which put a refreshing yet bloodthirsty new spin on the vampire legend. Now director Neils Arden Oplev introduces a memorably unconventional heroine in his superb adaptation of the best-selling novel by Stieg Larsson.

Part one of a trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a gripping and suspenseful yarn full of intrigue and deception that pulls no punches with the violence meted out to the morally flawed characters.

And that violence is graphic and shocking, including images of torture and sexual abuse that leave you watching the big screen through your fingers.

Yet these scenes are never gratuitous and Oplev ensures that every bone-crunching punch is vital to the serpentine narrative that holds our interest for the entire 152 minutes, which passes all too quickly.

Starring Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Sven-Bertil Taube, Lena Endre, Peter Haber, and Peter Andersson, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist) is found guilty of slandering a prominent industrialist and is sentenced to prison. With six months until his incarceration, Mikael accepts a job from the reclusive Henrik Vanger (Taube).

The old man is still haunted by the disappearance of his 16-year-old niece Harriet 40 years earlier and hopes that the discredited journalist will be able to deduce, once and for all, who abducted and possibly killed the teenager.

"You don't know my family. You don't know what they're capable of," the old man warns Mikael.

Taking up residence in a cottage on the Vanger estate, the hack begins his investigation and he is soon joined by computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rapace), who has valuable insights to the case.

Together, the unlikely sleuths follow a trail of secrets and lies, trusting no one as they search for a killer in their midst.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is an exquisitely paced piece of genre filmmaking, distinguished by the sharpness of Oplev's direction, Nicolaj Arcell and Rasmus Heisterberg's script and fearless performances from the two leads.

Nyqvist and Rapace embody their roles without compromise, particularly the latter, who remains a tantalising enigma throughout.

"You know everything about me, I know nothing about you," complains Mikael.

"That's the way it is," replies Lisbeth.

Following the lead of Let The Right One In, which is being remade in Hollywood as we speak by director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is destined for an English language revamp in 2012.

It's hard to imagine the same level of brutality sitting comfortably with more saccharine American sensibil-ities, so see Oplev's film now in its full, uncompromising glory.

QUESTION TIME: Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) and Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace)

Even Scorsese and stellar line-up can't shed light on Shutter Island

shutter island (15) ***

The lunatics are taking over the asylum, or that's what Martin Scorsese's impeccably crafted psychological thriller would have us believe.

But then perception and reality are completely blurred in this 1950s-set mystery, adapted by screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis from the best-seller by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone).

In many ways, Shutter Island is an odd fit for Scorsese, who has always punched low and hard on the mean streets of his beloved New York.

Here, he is all at sea on the Boston Harbor Islands, concealing some obvious sleights of hand with the plot behind directorial brio.

The production design is flawless, evoking moods and fashions of the era, and cinematographer Robert Richardson, nominated for an Oscar this year for Inglourious Basterds, uses contrasting colour palettes to good effect.

However, for all its style, Shutter Island is a largely predictable and pedestrian yarn, elevated by a superior cast.

Even a consummate filmmaker as gifted as Scorsese cannot polish mediocrity to a golden lustre, despite a stellar line-up of Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Sir Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle Haley.

US Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) make the stomach-churning journey by water to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane with a hurricane closing in on the island.

Dr Cawley (Kingsley), who oversees the facility, reveals that one of the patients (Mortimer) has escaped and no one has any idea how she could have disappeared without trace. Examining the cell, Teddy discovers a scrap of paper bearing the scribbled words: "THE LAW OF 4. WHO IS 67?"

It's the first of many mysteries.

As the cops interview the staff including the threatening Dr Naehring (von Sydow), Teddy and Chuck begin to sense that something is terribly awry on Shutter Island.

As paranoia grips the men, Teddy becomes convinced that Cawley and his security team are secretly holding an additional patient hostage somewhere within the hospital's crumbling walls. Alas, voicing his fears would make the cop sound just as mad as some of the inmates.

Shutter Island is arguably Scorsese's most mainstream film and with more than $100 million at the American box office and counting, it may well be his most commercially successful.

However, it is not his finest offering by a long way, leaving us disoriented but ultimately unfulfilled as the cops get their answers.

DiCaprio's uneven and unconvincing performance makes sense in retrospect, as do the clumsy special effects, but both prove distracting and stop us from feeling completely immersed in the story. Ruffalo, Kingsley and co fail to make an impact while Michelle Williams appears in flashbacks as Teddy's wife.

Being incarcerated on Shutter Island for 138 minutes is too long and we are glad to escape.

IN THE MAD HOUSE: Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a US marshall

ALSO SHOWING

hachi: a dog's tale (U) ***

Hollywood has enjoyed a long love affair with man's best friend. From 1943's Lassie Come Home to last year's Marley & Me, shaggy dog tales have always been a staple on the big screen, with the canine star often outshining the human actors.

This is certainly true of Hachi: A Dog's Tale, which pits Richard Gere and Joan Allen against the cutest of fluffy Akita puppies and an impeccably trained full-grown version.

Hachi is a retelling of the true story of a loyal Japanese Akita who, in the 1920s, waited each day for his professor master at Shibuya station in Tokyo for ten years after the professor had died.

The dog became a national treasure in Japan and was immortalised with a bronze statue at the spot outside the station where he had waited all those years.

In 1987 Hachi's story was told on screen in the Japanese blockbuster Hachiko Monogatari.

Director Lasse Hallstrom's version pays homage to these cultural roots, starting the action in a Buddhist temple, where a monk packages up the little Akita puppy and sends it via airmail to America. By pure chance, the puppy wriggles free from its crate at a small-town station, just as Gere's character Parker is coming home from his own journey.

Parker, a music professor, has promised his wife Cate (Allen) he won't get another dog, and she is not happy when he sneaks Hachi into their beautiful, picket-fenced home.

The bond between Parker and Hachi grows despite the family's attempts to find his real owners.

Parker sneaks the puppy to his university. Eventually Cate relents and lets Parker keep Hachi. The pup grows up and it's not long before he's digging his way under the garden fence to follow Parker to the station.

This quickly turns into a routine: Hachi walks Parker to the station each morning and returns to greet his master at the same time every evening.

He becomes a familiar sight among the local shopkeepers and the station master (Jason Alexander), pulling together the small community with his unswerving loyalty.

While many dog movies can be little more than a schmaltz-fest, Hallstrom reins it in, keeping his meditation on love and everyday life just the right side of sentimental.

First film is the deepest

Jonathan Melville

Reel time

HERE'S a tricky question for you. What's your earliest film memory? Is it watching a Disney film on TV? Or maybe it's going to the cinema with your parents as a child and being enchanted or even terrified by what was going on up there on the silver screen?

Perhaps it's easier to name the film which had the biggest impact on you, making you view the world in a new way or think about things differently?

That's the central premise of new book Screen Epiphanies (BFI/Palgrave Macmillan), in which author Geoffrey Macnab has interviewed 32 leading film-makers with the aim of finding out which film inspired them to pursue a career in the industry.

Who'd have thought that Taxi Driver and Goodfellas director Martin Scorsese would nominate 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes as the one which he's "continually and obsessively" drawn to? He saw it first aged nine and it never left him.

Scottish director Kevin Macdonald, director of The Last King of Scotland and State of Play, plumped for 1943's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, partly because his grandfather, Emeric Pressburger, directed it and he could see so much of him in the film.

Oscar winner Danny Boyle, he of Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting fame, claims that he's still "haunted" by Apocalypse Now while Chariots of Fire director David Puttnam goes for the slightly less violent 1940 version of Pinocchio by Disney, saying that after seeing it in 1948 he left the cinema thinking "that's what I want to do."

The choices are many and varied, but what stands out is a deep love of the cinema-going experience, even those who saw the films first on TV trying hard to see them on the big screen later on.

My first cinema memory is queuing outside the old Odeon on South Clerk Street at the age of five to see The Empire Strikes Back, but my most vivid recollection is watching Back to the Future for the first time in 1985.

What's your earliest film memory? Visit www.edinburghnews. com/reeltime and let me know.

Coming next week

Gerard Butler gets into a scrape with ex-wife Jennifer Aniston in the romantic comedy THE BOUNTY HUNTER.

A con man (Jim Carrey) falls in love with his prison cellmate (Ewan McGregor ) in I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS.

A former CIA spy (Jackie Chan) foolishly agrees to look after his girlfriend's children in the action comedy THE SPY NEXT DOOR.

And John Travolta and Robin Williams embark on a disaster-laden road trip in OLD DOGS.

Top ten films

UK CHARTS

1 (-) Alice In Wonderland 3D

2 (-) Alice In Wonderland 2D

3 (3) The Crazies

4 (1) Avatar 3D

5 (2) The Lovely Bones

6 (4) The Princess And The Frog

7 (8) From Paris With Love

8 (7) Leap Year

9 (5) Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief

10 (6) Valentine's Day