Eye Candy #471 - "Syriana"

Syriana: A modern-day indictment of the oil industry and its players, the legal and illegal, the greedy and the poor and the corrupt. ‘Syriana’ itself is a term used by various Washington think-tank groups to describe a hypothetical Middle East (or so imdb.com tells me).  Directed by Steve Gaghan (who wrote “Traffic”, which is an excellent film), we have a variety of points of view and plot threads on the move here:

-the young, idealistic oil analyst with big ambitions (Matt Damon)

-the grizzled CIA agent (George Clooney) who knows the Middle East and its political climate better than any other current agent, but no one, including his handlers, are willing to listen to him

-the eldest son of a Saudi emir (Alexander Siddig) who wants to use his country’s oil wealth to revitalize his nation

-a corporate troubleshooter (Jeffrey Wright) responsible to investigating a recent oil merger that is mightily inconvenient for his employer

-a young Pakistan émigré who loses his job at an oil refinery (because of the aforementioned merger) and finds himself falling under the sway of a radical madrasah and the path of martyrdom

All these threads intertwine here, to show what is done in the name of oil, profits, power, religion, greed, and hate. And while it is an arguably depressing view, it has taken the time to demonstrate how it is not just a “Western” problem - none of the parties involved are in it for the greater good, they treat it like war, with nation-states fighting over resources like generals with armies. The battles are legal and extra-legal, the tactics sometimes fatal.  The movie is technically solid. Gaghan is able to keep all the stories moving and interesting to what may seem like an inevitable conclusion. The performances, particularly by Clooney (who is really against type here for him), are solid. I couldn’t find a weak link (it doesn’t hurt that the small parts are played by Chris Cooper and Christopher Plummer). I was really impressed by Alexander Siddig (who you may remember as Dr. Julian Bashir on “Star Trek Deep Space Nine”). He really hasn’t been given that many opportunities to flex his chops (the closest I can think of “Kingdom of Heaven” and even then, he’s a supporting role). He's excellent here, as the eldest son of the Saudi emir who wants to undo the damage to his country economically that oil has wrought (specifically the squandering of oil wealth so that S.A's GNP is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30th place, behind such economic "powerhouses" as Thailand and Pakistan).  What I enjoyed about the movie the most is its unwillingness to blame one side exclusively for the situation. We are shown the worst in human nature on all sides acting in conjunction. Whereas it is SO easy to fall into a trap condemning American foreign policy and oil company profits (which are easy outs that don’t identify all sides of the problem, and because it doesn’t, it doesn’t educate the audience beyond the easy visceral, emotional ‘right/wrong’ response of getting people pissed off with incomplete information, which seems to be happening more and more in all forms of media).   If you are going to tackle this subject, I always vote on the side of thoroughness, because then you have enough information to draw your own conclusions.  An excellent film and one I think everyone should view. This film was better than “Capote”, “Crash”, "Munich", and “Brokeback Mountain”.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”