Courtesy / Universal Journalist Lawrie Dayne (AMY RYAN) questions Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (MATT DAMON) in ?Green Zone?. In the thriller, Damon stars as a rogue U.S. Army officer who must hunt through covert and faulty intelligence hidden on foreign soil before war escalates in an unstable region.

Director Paul Greengrass may be known best as the director of two of Matt Damon’s “Bourne Identity” action-thrillers. But the British filmmaker also directed “United 93,” a harrowing recreation of 9/11 events aboard the hijacked flight, easily the best 9/11 movie ever made.

Greengrass has re-teamed with Damon for “Green Zone,” a mix of action-and-real-facts political thriller about the Iraq War. With “Green Zone,” the director may have hit that high mark again.

While the Oscar-winning “Hurt Locker” does a good job giving us the tension of the war zone from a soldier’s point of view, it really says little about the Iraq War itself, which is treated as backdrop. “Green Zone” is as pro-soldier but it dives deeply into the war itself while still delivering edge-of-the-seat action. “Green Zone” is a first-rate film on all levels, an outstanding combination of action entertainment and fact-based storytelling, and probably the best film about the war yet.

The film’s story starts in Baghdad in 2003, where Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) leads a team of soldiers tasked with finding weapons of mass destruction, the reason Americans were given for going to war. But Miller is puzzled by his team’s lack of success in finding WMDs, despite intelligence reports assuring them of weapons at each location. The team braves snipers amid the chaos of looting, only to find empty warehouses with 10 years of pigeon droppings.

A good soldier just trying to do his job, with no particular political view, Miller is frustrated about putting his soldiers in harm’s way for missing weapons and wants to know why the intelligence is so far off-base. He goes up the chain of command seeking answers with no luck, until CIA commander Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) approaches him about faulty intelligence, all from the same secret source.

Miller finds himself caught in a power-struggle in the Green Zone headquarters, between the administration’s civilian commander Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) and Brown. Reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan) wrote about WMDs before the invasion but is now also pressing Poundstone for answers about that source. Both sides try to co-opt Miller, but he goes on his own quest for answers with the help of his translator Freddy (Khalid Abdalla).

Based on the non-fiction book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone,” facts unfurled in a draw-your-own-conclusions fashion as Miller uncovers them. “Green Zone” does a great job of re-creating the chaos of those early days of the conflict, with looting, panicked civilians, no electricity and no water.

There are plot twists and unexpected revelations, and few people surrounding the soldier are exactly as they seem. The plot skillfully weaves an entertaining thriller by incorporating historical facts about the war, many familiar but some forgotten or less well-known. While the tension is high and action fast, “Green Zone” is thought-provoking as well, and this side of it may confuse those expecting only “Bourne” style action.

Damon is perfect for this role, with his mix of sincerity and action-movie credibility. The action sequences are harrowing and pulse-pounding, and the mix of well-drawn, striking characters and facts is engrossing. Director Greengrass pioneered the hand-held visual technique so many action films now use. While the shaky views can be disconcerting, the arc of the scene is always clear.

“Green Zone” is a gripping and heart-breaking fact-based Iraq War movie/political thriller, told from the soldiers’ point of view. On all fronts, “Green Zone” is easily the best Iraq War movie so far. A –Cate Marquis