Syriana

I went to see Syriana last night.   I had very high hopes for this film, as I was drawn in by the intense trailer and have enjoyed writer/director Stephen Gaghan’s work on the movie Traffic.  Going into the theater I was prepared, from the reviews that I read, that Gaghan had taken a non-traditional route to the storytelling in Syriana: juggling at least 3-4 plots (there are probably more) simultaneously across 3 contents with an amazing cast (George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, and Amanda Peet) that were all treated (for the most part) as equals .

Unfortunately, this movie ended up to be more of an endurance test then a work of intrigue.  40 minutes into the show, I started to grab for my phone to see how much longer I had before I was allowed to go home.  Instead of providing new insights associated with the petro-politics of the Middle East; oil greed; and/or U.S. corporate/ geo-political influence in the world,  Gaghan tirelessly bores the audience with a mediocre screen play that obviously got in over its head on the subject matter.  The film reeks of Hollywood pseudo-intellect!

I believe that Bill Clark’s last paragraph from his review of the film posted on FromTheBlacony.com states it best:

"Those who find the deep inner workings of government corruption endlessly fascinating may find something to take away from Syriana, but by and large this is one of the slowest and most tedious films of the year – and certainly the biggest blown opportunity. A story done right about oil greed has the potential to be an authoritative must-see, but Syriana is not that film."

I give this one two thumbs down!

An interesting side note: "Syriana" is "a very real term used by Washington think tanks to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East".