Hey, I saw this movie - Syriana and as usual, I never read the reviews before watching a movie. I read the reviews only after seeing the movie; that too, I read only the reviews on MS.com. So I have to say the you must read moviezombie’s review of Syriana which is a precise and objective review. So I don’t see how I can improve on her review other than saying that this Stephen Gaghan has written this screenplay with help and ’’suggestions’’ from Robert Baer’s book called ’See No Evil’ which is the True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism. Another thing noteworthy is that Robert Baer acts in Syriana as CIA Security Officer No.2 by the name of Bob Baer. Stephen Gaghan is also the director of the movie-Syriana and he has also written the movie-Traffic, which was the best film of 2000.
As you know Traffic dealt with the drug-trade and Syriana deals with the Oil trade.
Both films have the thriller-drama element with a lot of weight hinging on political intrigue. But the true fact is that it is an apolitical (’apolitical’ means ’politically neutral’) movie. It has, though, an underlying motive which is the ’’campaign to reduce the US (global) dependence on OIL! I truly think that the motive has served its purpose in this brilliantly made movie.
The performance of the huge cast and crew is superlative. The filming of Syriana was on several beautiful locations like, Maryland, Washington, Texas, Geneva, Morocco, Egypt and Dubai. The 4 interspersed language-usage in the film of Farsi, Arabic, Urdu and English is a novel method and I am sure well-appreciated for those Asians seeing this movie.
Those who have lived in the Middle East (like me) will find this movie so true to life that one feels that this is exactly what goes on in the real world.
Syriana does not have a storyline, but it inundates you with character, story and information. There is no time to settledown. A huge effort is made to show that the people involved in this business are surrounded by a normal world with normal hopes and dreams. This is evident from the opening shot in the desert, where labourers (like Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians etc) in the desert after work are waiting to get on the bus to go to their labour camp but as is the case in real life, they jostle and fight and fisticuffs take place. Another event is in Tehran, where deals are made in a hip hop club.
The story of the film involves a possibly corrupt merger of two major American oil firms. Everything starts being revealed from there on. The story of Jeffrey Wright, the government official investigating the merger, George Clooney, the CIA operative with missions with no apparent aim, the Arab Emir from an unnamed oil producing country, and his two sons each wanting to take over his reign, the energy industry analyst (Matt Damon) who will use any event to bring forward his firm, and the young unemployed Pakistani youth who look for meaning in life through misguided religious ways!
This movie is not anti-American, but it blames the US and the West for making the need for oil ahead of all other priorities. It is not sympathetic to terror, but it shows us how a normal person gets to become a terrorist through a combination of hopelessness, unemployment, anger and poverty.
The film ends abruptly in its storytelling, in the sense that no one really knows what is going on in this world and who is really accountable for the situations that are going out of control!
Do not miss this significant film.