2005 December

Archive for December, 2005

SYRIANA

by Joe Barber on Dec.24, 2005, under Joe Barber's Movie Reviews

JOE’S REVIEW: “SYRIANA”

Stephen Gagan, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of “Traffic” , makes his directorial debut with “Syriana”. Based on a book by a former CIA operative, the film takes a close look at the roleoil plays in the globa-economic balance between the United States and the Arab world.

As in “Taffic”, we follow several different storylines and characters as they form an interconnected web of events as the overall plot unfolds.
George Clooney plays a veteran CIA operative who finds himself in the midst of a plot whose target he can’t seem to uncover. Matt Damon plays an idealistic young executive of a firm that hopes to make an agreement with a rising young Saudi prince who has plan to maximize the potential of the oil remaining in the Moiddle East while striving to create a more democratic form of government. Jeffery Wright plays a talented lawyer working for a powerful Washington law firm with deep ties to a Texas oil firm that’s ben accused of acts of corruption and bribery while dealing with the Saudis.

Gagan’s directing style tries hard to copy that of “Traffic” and, while he does a decent job of juggling the multiple stories, the movie doesn’t quite come together at the end with the same satisfying feeling “Traffic”
delivered. Gagan also undercuts the power of one portion of his otherwise compelling tale by having many of his Arab speaking characters speak their native language with subtitles. Unfortunately, those subtitles are often show against white backgrounds and very quickly, making them hard to follow, unlike similar scenes set in Mexico in “Traffic”.

Still, the acting here is uniformly excellent and the story is provocative and harrowing enough to stir up plenty of conversation and discussion. The world is a dangerous and complex place and oil drives much of it. “Syriana”
asks questions about the morality of how we get that oil and who gets used in the process. These are questions popular entertainment rarely asks.

“Syriana” boldly risks much and doesn’t completely deliver, but its willingness to try is a reward in itself.

MPAA RATING:R for profanity, violence and sexuality JOE’S RATING: THREE AND A HALF STARS.