Syriana
By: Moviefaire | Category: Film Reviews | 11/30/05 | 10:43 PM
 |  |  Grade: A | Genre: Drama/Thriller
Summary: If you think you dislike big oil companies and are suspicious of the feds now, you just wait until you see this flick. This film should be seen for its political insight and the sheer power of the message.
Syriana is an intelligent and masterfully crafted movie about the intrigue, politics, and underbelly of governmental involvement in the oil business. This movie possesses more plot lines than you can count on one hand, however, rest assured that by the end of the film all the dots will be connected, but you might not like the picture you are seeing. Syriana confronts the topics of big oil, shady government and the Middle East and demands that you think about those issues. This is a big, bold movie that is as complicated and as confusing at times as the subjects it is trying to cover, but somehow this film works. The writer/director, Stephan Gaghan delivers an ambitious piece of cinema which asks really tough questions about America's need for oil, in pretty much the same way he wrote about the drug world in his Academy Award winning screenplay Traffic, and amazingly enough, he succeeds. Gaghan forges a challenging, fictional thriller and solicits unaffected, honest performances throughout, but this film is not going to make you feel satisfied at the end, or comfortable, in fact you will feel quite the contrary. |
Syriana flows as a political fiction, but the film rings true with elements of authenticity in every scene. The swirling storylines can almost lose you at times, but hang in there, they are all related and interconnected. At the core of the story, a small, Persian Gulf oil nation is having an internal family struggle for the throne and the outcome of this becomes essential for some American oil companies and the C.I.A. The other subplots and characters are interwoven around this major theme. The beauty of this film is that you feel you are watching slices of reality as the movie has almost a journalistic feel to it. These characters and circumstances are slices of life that you probably already knew about to a certain extent, or were suspicious of, but when the whole package is on a screen in front of you, the issues at stake become something you need to confront.
 | | | Syriana | | Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Christopher Plummer, Amanda Peet, Tim Blake Nelson, Chris Cooper & William Hurt | | Director: Stephen Gaghan |
| | View the Trailer (Quicktime) |
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While there are some grand actors with minor roles in this movie, Christopher Plummer, Chris Cooper, and Tim Blake Nelson, who play characters that help to create the corruption, it must be said that George Clooney as C.I.A. operative Bob Barnes, Matt Damon as financial analyst Bryan Woodman, Jeffrey Wright as Washington lawyer Bennett Holiday, and Alexander Siddig as Prince Nasir, deliver the fascinating character studies in the film. George Clooney executes a bust-out performance as a bearded, bloated ground soldier who has been used and abused by the C.I.A in the war on terror. This man orders the hit on Prince Nasir who will not play ball with the West's oil companies. Clooney, is perhaps the book author's alter ego in this film, as the movie is based on the 2002 memoir by former CIA operative Robert Baer. The performance by Clooney is his best to-date and painfully moving for its vulnerability and haunting quality. Clooney creates a man you will not soon forget. Matt Damon gives a powerful turn as a man dishonest enough with himself to use the death of his child in the house of the Emir to profit from financially, and while you can blame him for such an act, you are not quite sure you can condemn him either. Jeffrey Wright is an attorney bothered by his own conscience as he tries to negotiate a merger between the true villains of the film, two big oil companies who live for the profits. Alexander Siddig, gives a sensitive, multi-layered portrayal as the noble Prince Nasir, a leader who wants what is best for his country, and that does not necessarily translate to what is good for the U.S. There is a heartbreaking performance by a relatively unknown actor, Mazhar Munir, who plays Wasim, detailing the creation of a suicide bomber. This extraordinary part of the film is so real and so profound that, for a fleeting moment, you can almost understand what drives and motivates these young men, who have nothing and therefore, have nothing to lose. The utter hopelessness in their lives and the seduction of religious fanaticism is palpable.
There is no real escape from the issues this movie presents to us, and Gagham pulls no punches in this film. Syriana has very important things to say, and should be seen by thinking adults. No entity gets a pass in this movie, not our government or the oil companies. This is an unsettling movie, and there is no instant gratification and no easy answers. The truth of the matter is, we need answers, and we need them now from those in authority and that is perhaps the essence of what this movie is saying. A movie like this can change things, but only if the viewers become involved and demand accountability. Syriana possesses, sadly, a rare quality in films these days, the potential to challenge the audience, now what the audience does with confrontation is another matter.
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