Syriana

June 24, 2006

Rated: R Runtime: 126 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Syriana is one of the most complex movies I’ve seen in awhile, I really wanted a Prima guide to help me with the first 45 minutes! This isn’t really a complaint, the issues brought up are quite complex so it’s fitting that the movie itself mirror this.

Syriana Syriana is about the oil industry, from the workers in the field who become disenchanted at various points, to the Arab cultures, to the political moves behind the scenes that keep the crude flowing, to the analysts and advisers, all the way to the politicians and federal workers who keep the “best interests” of the country in mind when doing their jobs. And it covers all of this in about 2 hours.

Did I mention that it’s complex?

The story centers around one main event, the purchase of oiling rights in Kazakhstan by Killen, a small oil company and the subsequent purchase of that company by a large oil company, Connex. How did Killen get those rights? Did it bribe someone? Was Connex in on the deal from the beginning? Should the U.S. Government allow this purchase? At the same time one of the large Gulf States signs a deal to provide oil to China, possibly causing a disruption in the U.S. supply and at the very least giving China a good foothold in energy. Should the leader of that country have done that? Did the CIA know it was going to happen and not prevent it? Did it try? Should it have?

Hell, I give up.

The point of Syriana isn’t the story, it’s the ideas behind the story. Our dependency on oil is obvious, and we get a large percentage of our oil from regions that we may find politically distasteful. The question is do we care or not. As long as we get what we need is it any of our concern regarding the internal politics of those countries?

Syriana succeeds in raising these questions in a thoughtful way that doesn’t shove the liberal interpretation of the facts down our throats. Unfortunately the movie is so convoluted that it’s hard to follow and many people watching it on DVD will just hit stop before making it halfway through. If I hadn’t needed to write a review, I might have been one of those people. I’m glad I stuck around though as it is a subject worth some thought, they just need more explosions. And a few bikinis wouldn’t have hurt either.

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Chris Cooper, DVD, Drama, George Clooney, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Damon, R, Thriller, William Hurt