From writer/director Stephen Gaghan (Traffic) comes another political thriller, Syriana, this one centered against the backdrop of an oil-producing Gulf country. In it, the young Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) is trying to change long-established business relations with US business interests. As in Traffic, Syraina weaves together many plot elements, perhaps too many, for I found it hard to follow at times and very slow-moving.

The film stars many an actor: George Clooney, who plays Bob Barnes, a veteran CIA agent; Matt Damon as energy analyst Bryan Woodman; and Jeffrey Wright as Bennett Holiday, an ambitious Washington attorney to name just a few.

It centers around the Connex Corporation, which has just been thrown over for drilling rights to the Gulf country by the prince for a more lucrative Chinese bid. Meanwhile, a smaller Texas oil company, Killen, run by Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper), wins drilling rights in Kazakhstan, which makes Connex want to merge with Killen. Once they merge, the deal attracts the scrutiny of the Justice Department and Sloan Whiting, a DC law firm for which Bennett Holiday works. They come in to investigate the merger and the companies.

Meanwhile, heroic Bob Barnes, near retirement and promised a promotion after one last undercover mission — assassinating Prince Nasir — blows it because one of his operatives turns on him, and all hell breaks loose for Clooney’s character.

These are just a few of the plot strands involved in the film, which involves everyone from those mentioned above to field workers who are kicked out of work in the Gulf nation to the Chinese…. oh the list goes on. And with each strand comes more confusion.

However, this is, as I said, an ambitious and timely film, and so I tried my hardest to get into it and really grip the supposed political intrigue being built. But unlike Traffic, the characters in Syriana really don’t get well developed; I ended up not caring about any of them. Clooney says of the film, “Movies, at their best, can initiate discussions — obviously, in this case, discussions about dependency on oil, but Syriana also opens discussions about corruption, about the effectiveness of the CIA, about any number of things. You want people to be standing around the water cooler the next day talking about it, saying here’s what I agree with or here’s where they’re wrong. We need that discussion.” And I agree, we do need discussions about these things. And maybe Syriana will bring on those discussions. But I fear it will ultimately bring on more discussions of “What the hell was going on in this part of the film?” or “What the hell was the plot, anyway?” It was that confusing. And to me, that boring. Though the film comes in at just about 2 hours, it seemed much longer as it dragged along. Only one scene caught my attention, the torture of Clooney’s character.

In any case, it’s a shame Syriana ends up as confusing as it does, because Clooney is right; we do need to discuss the political elements of the film. And maybe it’s worth recommending on that angle. But can I? Not really.

Author Bio: Theodore DiPietro loves political thrillers but didn’t enjoy Syriana very much.

Category: Entertainment
Keywords: syriana, clooney, political thriller, film