The Code

Set in New York City, veteran thief Keith Ripley (Freeman) recruits younger crook Gabriel Martin (Banderas) to help him pull off one final job in order to repay his debt to the Russian mob, who had killed his previous partner, Victor Korolenko, over the debt before they could complete the plan. Martin is unsure of Ripley, but Ripley's goddaughter, Alexandra Korolenko (Mitchell), who is also Victor's daughter, convinces him other wise, although Ripley doesn't like that the two are getting close. Ripley tells Martin the plan, that they are going to steal from a Russian Museum that has been smuggling Russian treasures into the country and bribing the NYPD with large donations and expensive equipment. The two infiltrate a party at the museum posing as cops, with Ripley as Lt. Weber (Forster), a cop who has a particular vendetta against Ripley, to gather information about their vault.

The Russian mob, lead by Nicky (Šerbedžija), grow impatient with Ripley and kidnap Alexandra, telling them they must steal two Fabergé eggs from the Russian Museum in order to get her back. When the duo get into the vaults of the museum with the eggs, Martin reveals he is an undercover cop from Miami planted by Weber to catch Ripley, leaves Ripley locked in the vault and informs Weber, while taking the eggs to the Russian mobster to free Alexandra. After Alexandra is released Martin is forced to meet with Nicky who reveals that the eggs they have stolen are made of wood (like the Karelian Birch egg). Meanwhile, Weber and his squad enter the museum, but are detained by the security guards due to Martin telling the guards he was a cop as he escaped.

Martin reports in to the police the next morning after the police have picked up Nicky, only to learn that the man they have in custody isn't the man Martin met, and that that was actually Victor Korolenko, who had faked his death with Ripley's help. It is then revealed that Ripley had escaped, letting the museum know cops were on the way and that they had cleaned out the vault of all the smuggled items (which had included the eggs) before the police could inspect it, meaning there was no evidence that anything had been stolen and that Martin's testimony would be worthless as his actions have been kept off the book to prevent Ripley from finding out and that Martin's involvement with Alex compromises him, and Ripley had to be let go.

Ripley later calls Martin from a tarmac ready to leave with Victor to meet with a buyer for the eggs, letting him know that they knew Martin was a cop from the beginning, and that they plan on going into hiding, although Alex will continue to stay in New York (having been in on the plan the whole time) and where he can pick up his cut. Martin later meets up with Alex, who confesses that her feelings for him are real, and decides to become a thief.[

Green Zone

General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor), in hiding in Baghdad, is meeting with his aides talking about the invasion of Iraq. Many of his aides propose fighting other Iraqi forces and American forces, however Al-Rawi suggests that they remain where they are and wait until the Americans arrive and perhaps make the Iraqi army an offer to join their forces (the earlier arrival of Al-Rawi, senior in the Iraqi government, is noticed by an an Iraqi we will come to know as Freddie).

Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his squad investigate a warehouse, believed to be holding Weapons of Mass Destruction. After encounters with a sniper and scanning the warehouse for radioactive activity, they find that the warehouse is empty, with the exception of an old piece of mechanical equipment. After regrouping with his squad, Roy Miller starts to question the intel given to him. At a debriefing, Miller brings up the point that the majority of the intel given to him is inaccurate and anonymous, stating that on his last three attempts to find WMDs, his team had come up with nothing. High-ranking officials quickly debunk Miller's theory about the intelligence being false.

Meanwhile, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) is welcoming Ahmed Zubadi (Raad Rawi) an Iraqi politician at Saddam International Airport, where he is interrogated by journalist Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan). She asks if she could speak to "Magellan", to which Poundstone says that he is heavily "locked up".

After the debriefing, Miller meets Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), an employee of the CIA, who tells Miller that the next place he is going to investigate for WMDs is also empty, as a team had already searched there months ago. Brown suggests that the intelligence he is being given is part of a cover-up.

Whilst investigating another site, a playground where WMDs are thought to be buried, Miller is approached by the Iraqi seen earlier, who calls himself "Freddie" (Khalid Abdalla), who tells Miller that he saw Al-Rawi at the meeting in a nearby house. Miller and his men swiftly go to the house but Al-Rawi narrowly escapes but they take one of his henchmen into custody. This man Seyyed Hamza (Said Faraj) happens to have a book containing the addresses of Al-Rawi's safehouses, but before Miller can extract any more information the man is taken by Delta Force, sent by Poundstone.

Miller goes to Brown's hotel to give him the notebook and tell him of what took place, and then Brown tells Miller to go and retrieve the man taken by the Delta Force and offer him $1 million dollars in exchange for co-operation. Before leaving, he is approached by Wall Street Journal correspondent Lawrie Dayne, who hands him her card if Miller should wish to disclose any information later on. When he gets to the prison where the informant is held, the man is in desperate need of medical attention due to interrogation, and after Miller suspects that Al-Rawi might be Magellan, the man responds with the word "Jordan" after Miller asks him about Al-Rawi's whereabouts in the run up to the invasion. With Brown's help, Miller's suspicions are confirmed and it is discovered that Al-Rawi met with Poundstone in February in Jordan as Poundstone's inside man.

Miller then goes in pursuit of Al-Rawi, and, having been kidnapped by Al-Rawi's men, Al-Rawi tells him that he told Poundstone there had been no WMD programme since the First Gulf War, and we learn that Poundstone lied to his superiors in Washington - so that Iraq would be invaded anyway. General Al-Rawi then flees as the Iraqi Army is disbanded by the CPA and Delta Force learn of his location and, in their helicopters track to try to kill him. Back with Miller, he kills his captors and races to capture Al Rawi before the Special Forces get him. Meantime Freddie is shadowing Miller who does catch Al-Rawi, after shooting dead a high ranking terrorist working with Al-Rawi, Al-Malik, who had just killed Major Briggs, the leader of the Delta Force team, and says to him that if he surrenders he will take him back to Brown. At this point Freddie appears and shoots Al-Rawi to death, saying it's not Miller's choice.

At a meeting the next day where the Iraqi denominators are trying to broker a deal, Miller confronts Poundstone with what he found out and gives him a strongly-worded report of how the whole invasion was based on a lie. Poundstone denies any knowledge of meeting Al-Rawi or lying about the existence of WMDs but instead tells Miller "We're not stopping", in reference to America's push for democracy in Iraq. Miller violently grabs Poundstone but the encounter is split up by Delta Force soldiers. Poundstone then rejoins the Iraqi meeting, only to see the Iraqi leaders yelling at each other and leaving the meeting.

Later in his hotel room, Miller writes a report on the everything that happened.

Afterwards, Miller e-mails his report to Dayne, as well as many major news corporations and newspapers in the western world to expose the scandal. The camera then pans out to show Miller driving off on a Iraqi highway, with the Iraqi oil fields in the background.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

The Hurt Locker opens with a quotation from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a best-selling 2002 book by New York Times war correspondent and journalist Chris Hedges: "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug."[10][11]

During the early stages of the post-invasion period in Iraq in 2004,[12][13] Sergeant First Class William James, a battle-tested veteran, becomes the team leader of a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, replacing Staff Sergeant Thompson, who was killed by a radio-controlled 155mm improvised explosive device (IED) in Baghdad. He joins Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge, whose jobs are to communicate with their team leader via radio inside his bombsuit, and provide him with rifle cover while he examines IEDs. During their missions of disarming IEDs and engaging insurgents together, James's unorthodox methods lead Sanborn and Eldridge to consider him reckless. Tensions mount between James and the other two team members. During a raid on a warehouse, James discovers the dead body of a young boy who has been surgically implanted with an unexploded bomb. James believes it to be "Beckham", a young Iraqi merchant he had previously befriended.

Later, James orders his team to pursue two insurgents responsible for a recent explosion. Sanborn protests that the task should be left to an infantry platoon, but James overrules him. During the operation, Eldridge is accidentally shot in the leg. The next morning, James is approached by Beckham. The young boy tries to converse with James, who walks by without saying a word. Being airlifted for surgery, Eldridge angrily blames James for his injury.

After failing in a mission to remove and disarm a time-bomb strapped to an Iraqi civilian's chest, Sanborn becomes emotional and confesses to James that he can no longer cope with the pressure of being in EOD, and he looks forward to finally leaving Iraq and starting a family. James returns home to his wife and child and is shown quietly performing the routine tasks of suburban civilian life. One night James confesses to his infant son that there is only one thing that he knows he loves. He is next seen back in Iraq, ready to serve another 365 days as an EOD team member with Delta Company.