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| Syriana |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 126 |
| Public Rating: 8.13 (83 votes) |
Director: Stephen Gaghan |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Political Drama |
Year: 2005 |
| Writer(s): Stephen Gaghan, Robert Baer (suggestion) |
| Distributor: Warner Brothers |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Directed and written by Stephen Gaghan (Academy Award Winner, Best Adapted Screenplay, Traffic), Syriana is a multi-character, multi-plot political thriller centered on the oil industry. Following the formula used to devastating effect in Traffic, Gaghan takes a top-to-bottom approach to the global oil industry, following four characters from different backgrounds as each character become enmeshed in the corruption, conspiracies, and casual cruelties typical of corporate capitalism and the governments, both liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes, that profit from the oil industry and the insatiable demand for cheap oil. Given the complex subject matter, it's not surprising that Gaghan loses control of the material at times, often failing to give sufficient context or background to understand who the players are and what their actions, in fact, mean. It's the major drawback to a film that, with an expanded running time, might have been one of the best of the year.
Syriana follows four, at times loosely, related storylines. In the first storyline, Robert Barnes ( a bearded, overweight, George Clooney), a veteran CIA operative, finds himself questioning the choices he's made over a career spent primarily in the Middle East. In the opening scene, Barnes calmly negotiates the sale of two missiles to two Iranian arms dealers in Tehran. Barnes' plan goes awry when one of the missiles goes missing. Back at Langley, Virginia, the headquarters of the CIA, Barnes is asked for his assessment of Iran and its prospects for Western-style democratization. His answer displeases both his superiors and representatives of an organization that calls itself the Committee to Liberate Iran. Eventually, Barnes is given another field mission, which takes him back to Beirut, Lebanon. That mission too goes badly, with long-term repercussions for Barnes (none of them good).
In the second storyline, an up-and-coming corporate attorney, Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), is asked by the senior partner at his law firm, Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer), to oversee the due diligence review necessary to approve a corporate merger between Connex Oil, one of the largest oil companies in America, and Killian Oil, a smaller oil company that has just won drilling rights in oil-rich Kazakhstan. An old mentor, Donald Farrish (David Clennon), now working for the U.S. attorney, approaches Holiday about potential illegalities that might undermine the merger. Holiday is faced with a crisis of conscience, even as his personal life, in the form of an alcoholic father, Bennett Holiday, Sr. (William Charles Mitchell), impinges on his professional career.
In the third storyline, a Geneva-based energy analyst, Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon), and his wife Julie (Amanda Peet) undergo a family tragedy that, in turn, gives Woodman access to the powerful Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig), the first-born son and heir apparent of an unnamed, oil-rich Middle-Eastern country ruled by his authoritarian father, Mohammed Sheik Agiza (Amr Waked). His father's poor health suggests that Nasir will become the emir in short order. Nasir imagines himself a political reformer. He wants to democratize and modernize his country. Political interests inside, led by his ambitious younger brother, and outside his country, led by Western countries unhappy with an oil deal Nasir has struck with the Chinese, threaten to derail his plans. Woodman, motivated by a mixture of idealism and egotism, becomes Nasir's de facto economic advisor.
In the fourth storyline, Wasim (Mazhar Munir) and his father Ahmed Khan (Shahid Ahmed), Pakistani guest workers in Prince Nasir's unnamed country, are laid off from his job from his new Chinese employers. Wasim and his father have two weeks to find other employment or face deportment back to Pakistan. While Ahmed still dreams of making enough money to buy a house in Pakistan, Wasim becomes increasingly disillusioned, particularly after an encounter with armed guards at the employment office. Wasim begins to drift, finding comfort in a madrasa, a local Islamic religious school. There, a teacher begins the ideological indoctrination that will turn Wasim's despair and disillusionment into violence.
The preceding description may suggest, incorrectly, that the four storylines unfold sequentially. They don't. Like Traffic, Gaghan interweaves the four storylines until they more or less converge in the final scenes, and although two of them end as expected, they still manage to convey a great deal of emotion (which is to Gaghan's credit). Traffic interwove three storylines stretched out across a longer running time. Here, Gaghan ambitiously tries to interweave and connect an additional storyline into a tighter, shorter running time. The storylines demand that audiences follow multiple characters, major and minor, and multiple plot developments, often at a brisk pace. Gaghan compounds this problem by failing to adequately introduce minor characters and their relationship to one another (especially in the Barnes storyline) or in giving insufficient background for the character's motivations or plot developments.
Syriana essentially asks potential viewers to go into the film with at least some knowledge about Middle East geopolitics, the CIA, corporate politics, and the symbiotic connection between American corporations and the federal government. If not, viewers will find themselves frustrated by Syriana's convoluted structure and ambiguous exposition. For once, more would have been better (e.g., a longer running time, more careful, even repetitive explanations). For those wanting more, Gaghan would most likely recommend Robert Baer's book, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism. Baer's book served as the inspiration for Gaghan's screenplay and George Clooney's character, Robert Barnes.
As a side note, the title of the film, Syriana is never explained or mentioned by a major or minor character. The press notes explain that “Syriana” is a term used by foreign policy wonks to describe a theoretical remapping of the Middle East. The term certainly connects to the political influence exerted by the oil industry executives on the unnamed Middle Eastern country within the film. It's odd, however, that Gaghan preferred to leave that connection as subtext that only foreign policy wonks or viewers with access to the press notes or the film's web site would know about. It's only one unanswered question among several that Gaghan leaves unanswered.
© Mel Valentin, 23rd November, 2005
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