SYRIANA

Director: Steven Gaghan (Abandon, writing credit for Traffic)
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Kayvan Novak, Christopher Plummer, more)

As I understand it, Syriana is a flippant term used in US government circles as a potential Middle Eastern country redrawn from the current mess of nationalities and political boundaries. The use is of a new country that would be more sympathetic to US desires, or at least a new country easier to deal with. This extremely well constructed story is about the reality of Syriana.

Steven Gaghan, the screenwriter of the fine film Traffic, has followed that same script format as that film for an even more complicated issue than the illegal drug trade. This time we see interrelated stories in the geo-political/economic/cultural/religious struggles in the Middle East over Oil. That is a complicated, frustrating topic if ever there was one. It’s very surprising to me that Gaghan did as well as he did constructing this excellent story. It is not as tight in my mind as the interwoven tales in Traffic, but it does quite nicely for a two-hour movie.

In brief, the US, and the world, has massive interests in the oil under the sands of Arabia. Massive interests. Personally, I would not want to imagine an economy void of petroleum, because it would probably resemble the Bedouin herders who make an appearance in the film. But that aside, due to this need for oil, there are certain corruptions that have occurred, and are occurring, will occur, and in some cases ‘might’ occur. The film shows Texas oilmen lining their pockets, while skirting the less important of our trade laws. It shows our government promoting foolish tyrants in the region to maintain the status quo. It shows terrorists blowing up oil facilities because they live in a hopeless world.

These are all truths. They are all things that have happened, are happing, and will happen. It is a political charged film, because it’s taking on a subject that is currently considered political. It should be noted that not all oilmen are corrupt, that replacing evil dictators in the region is not exactly an easy thing to do, and there certainly are terrorists who are very nearly the human form of evil. I hope that viewers take this sort of story beyond the “political” braying of cable news, and actually use it to ask themselves questions. It’s a good enough film to do so.

There is no doubt that this is an extremely complicated issue, and the tone of the film is such that it understands this. I don’t think it says that America is the bad guy in all this. It simply says that America, or some Americans, in some instances may be more concerned with fattening themselves than in improving life for the masses. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Beyond the politics, I found this to be a smart, engaging thriller (of sorts). It was well constructed on most every level. I should give a particular bit of praise to George Clooney. In this role he simply captured the look of a vital man weak and weary with the world. With the weight he gained he looked like he was almost heaving himself from one job to another. He gave a very good performance, although the role as written was fairly straight and uncomplicated. The same level of praise should be given to Jeffrey Wright as a quiet lion of a lawyer working for the oil companies.

Standouts: A very strong, smart script. Fine acting by Clooney, Wright, Chris Cooper and others.
Blowouts: Matt Damon was very solid, but not quite at the level of gravitas required, I think.

Grade: A

12/13/2005