Movie Review: Syriana

Syriana

There were two major factors that induced me to see this movie, typically not the kind of thing I go for: First, it was obviously overtly political. And secondly, it was written and directed by the same man who wrote the very good Traffic. The end result, however, proved to be almost as much a mixed bag as are the snippets of film spliced willy nilly together to make the whole.

Syriana is based in part on the book by Robert Baer entitled "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism." (For the record, "Syriana" is, according to an interview with the author published in The Washington Post, "...a fictional place, a term used inside the Beltway, to describe redrawing the borders in the Middle East to suit our interests. It's a made-up name.") The author alleges that everything from the oil companies' manipulations of price and politics to terrorism itself is directly attributable more to politics than to ideology. The movie makes that case.

Much of the story of Syriana revolves around aging CIA operative, Bob Barnes (George Clooney). He's an expert on the Middle East who speaks fluent Farsi and who knows — mostly — how to navigate the turbulent relationships between various political factions there. By virtue of what he does and what he's charged with finding out, Barnes sometimes engages in some fairly shady transactions including the provision of a pair of missile launchers to one contact. Everything in the exchange goes as planned until Barnes takes note that one of the launchers is given, in turn, to someone else. He immediately sends a memo to headquarters to determine what he should do next.

Meanwhile, several power struggles occur simultaneously:

In one of them, the ailing Emir (Nadim Sawalha) of a Persian Gulf country wants to step down. At issue is which of his two eldest sons will take over for him. The elder, Prince Nasir Al-Subaai (Alexander Siddig) is well educated and has concrete plans to reform the political system in his country and bolster its fragile economy for the benefit of the average citizen. The second son, Prince Mashal Al-Subaai (Akbar Kurtha) doesn't care about reform but rather seeks only to ensure that the oil and the cash keep on flowing.

In another, two large American oil companies seek the approval of Congress to merge. Killen Oil, headed by Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper) is the smaller of the two companies. To make itself more attractive to a buyer, it's somehow managed to secure sole access to some newly discovered oil fields overseas. Connex is a larger company looking to expand its already huge influence with the acquisition of Killen. The problem both companies have, however, is getting approval for the merger when some in the Department of Justice are already questioning just how it was that Killen managed the deal it made.

In a much smaller but just as heated venue, a group of Arab men find themselves out of work when the Chinese move in after submitting the winning bid for oil from a particular source. Left at loose ends and seeking jobs anywhere they can, they turn to their religion and to discussions of just how they might improve their lot.

This framework is all loosely tied together with the economic predictions of analyst Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon). Woodman, who suffers personal tragedy even as his career is on the rise, eventually finds himself in the position of giving advice to some very highly placed persons indeed. But when the various threads of the story merge, he finds that more than money is at risk, and that nothing can stop the steamroller of politics when expedience and perceived necessity are involved.

The acting in Syriana is top notch all the way around, and the story is fascinating to say the least. Unfortunately, it's also very hard to follow as the scenes jump from one subplot to the next, sometimes at breakneck speed. All too often, the snippets we're given seem less than important, or are too cryptic at the time to fully grasp. Both the screenplay and the editing are to blame here, and the director should have taken matters a little more in hand to correct those flaws (it's entirely possible that director Stephen Gaghan, who also wrote the screenplay, merely compounded problems with his two-pronged interpretation of the story).

While the bottom line comes across nicely — politics rules and overrules all — a good deal of impact is lost as the suspense continuously stops and starts in fits and jerks. Adding insult to injury is the fact that some fairly important threads of the storyline seem to fade away, or worse, end abruptly with little or no sense of finality. And don't even get me started on the scenes that apparently exist for little or no reason at all! For all of its good points — and there are some — Syriana left me feeling strangely unsatisfied.

The film is esoteric at best and, while it may fare well with some critics, won't be nearly so well liked by audiences in general. That's too bad since the matters described in the film deserve broad consideration by as many of us as possible. Unfortunately, while Syriana makes no pretense of offering solutions to these all important problems, it also fails to phrase the questions themselves in a remotely clear way.

POLITICAL NOTES: Syriana is obviously political from start to finish, and on virtually every level. That being said, it does seem to do a reasonably even-handed job at spreading blame around though there are a couple of exceptions to that. For example, one character takes note of the fact that, though the US has 5% of the world population, its military expenses add up to about 50%. He calls that an indicator of a loss of power and respect; I'd frankly say that's because a lot of our military hardware is quite a bit more high tech and thus more expensive than that in much of the rest of the world (well, and in many cases, we've got more of it). Then, of course, there's the fact that — rightly or wrongly — we're saddled with protecting others, too.

As a whole, politics is shown as being dirty within American oil companies, American intelligence agencies, and the American government itself (arguably true). It's also, however, viewed as dirty from within the traditional Arab governments, particularly when reformers are disregarded at best (again, a point that has merit). The only viewpoint for which I have virtually no sympathy at all is the apparent rationale given suicide bombers who are depicted as having little recourse to escape from their downtrodden existence.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Syriana is rated R for "violence and language." Though there is some of each — a scene involving torture is particularly difficult to watch — it's not as graphic as you might expect. From the perspective of the scenes that earned the rating, I don't really see a problem with mature kids of about age 14 and up seeing the movie. No, the real problem arises when moviegoers of almost any age actually watch the film and try to follow the plot. If you can sit through this lengthy presentation (the film clocks in at just about two hours, and it seemed longer) and aren't too worried about understanding each and every scene, there are some valid talking points made. But if economics and international politics doesn't hold a lot of intrigue for you, then neither will this movie.