The Diva's review of
Syriana (2005)

Rated R; running time of 2 hour and 6 minutes
Genre: Drama
Written by: Stephen Gaghan, suggested by See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism by Robert Baer
Directed by: Stephen Gaghan
Cast: George Clooney, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Damon, Alexander Siddig, Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer, Amanda Peet, William Hurt

WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW

The Digest

Where do I begin??? This movie has 3 maybe 4 interwoven stories each one complex on its own so its going to be a bit difficult to accurately explain to you what is going on, but I will try.

Bob Barnes (George Clooney), is a CIA operative who specializes in dealing with the Middle East. He become s a problem after a arms deal goes bad and he begins a memo writing campaign to expose the shortfall in the intelligence gathering. The Powers That Be, don’t like this and want his shut up. On the other side of the world in Switzerland, energy consultant Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) is hired as a financial advisor by Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) Nasir is the elder son of the dying emir (Nadim Sawalha) of an oil-rich country, who wants to change the direction his countr y is going in by using oil money to update the country. But, his younger brother is preferred because he can be controlled in favor of the U.S.

Also in the background is the story Wasim Khan (Mazhar Munir), a Pakistani guest worker in the Gulf > He hopes to make enough money to bring his family ovr but the impressionable young man is taken in by a school that while teaching them to survive in that country, it also teaches him to become a suicide bomber.

The Dish

I don’t know where to begin… okay this movie depressed the hell out of me. I already am not too pleased with the various governments around the world and this movie did nothing to ease these feelings. I know it’s just a movie, but I believe that there is some truth to it -most specifically the backroom dealing and bribery that took place.

The chief problem I had with this movie was there was so much going that I was never able to fully see the connection between everyone. Some connections were obvious, but others were vaguely touched upon and I suggest that if there had been a few less pieces, it would have been easier to discern who was doing what to whom. This movie by the same team that brought us “Traffic”, yet “Traffic” did a better job of connecting all of the players and I walked away feeling like I had grasped the entire movie. I did not feel like I completely “got” Syriana.

But what did occur was lots of discussion an in the end I think that’s all that really mattered even if the discussion was chiefly about trying to figure out everything we just saw.

I think all of the acting was amazing. Let me be the first to say it – Christopher Plummer’s character was a pimp. A P.I.M.P. His character blew me away. And can I please say that I got PISSED when George Clooney’s character was mistreated. I won’t go into more detail lest I ruin it for you, but it was not nice. Jeffrey Wright was amazing as well. His character believably wanted to do the right thing, but the temptation was too great for him. Every single character was flawed in some way. I couldn’t like any of them 100% and I couldn’t dislike any of them 100% and I’m not sure I was supposed to . There were no easy answers. No easy solutions. Just plain depressing to me.

The Directive

This is a heavy film. Prepare yourself to be forced to address some deep questions.

Powerful.

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Copyright Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, 2005
EMAIL: thediva@3blackchicks.com
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