Directed and written by Stephen Gaghan
Starring: George Clooney, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Damon, Mazhar Munir, Amanda Peet Chris Cooper, Alexander Siddig.
The story behind the film Syriana is one about greed. It is about corruption, ignorance and cowardice. It is about the life we live outside our front door, that we choose to ignore because the events do not happen to us directly. Director/writer Stephen Gaghan, scribe and adaptor for the 1999 narcotic film Traffic tells a story about the choices men make in order to get what they want. Like Traffic, this film has a story to tell in which the viewer is left to conclude what they will and think about what is the price of “business as usual”.
The story that unfolds starts out in the guise of four people. George Clooney plays a CIA agent who after many a year on the field of play in the Middle East gets called back to Washington for reassignment. Matt Damon’s role is a financial analyst for a Geneva company who gets a substantial contract at a personal cost. Jeffrey Wright portrays a corporate lawyer who is overseeing the merger between two oil companies. Mazhar Munir has a tough role, that of an unemployed immigrant oil field worker who is caught in a web of fear.
The stories of the four at first do not appear to have any relation in the first 30 minutes of the film. As the film progresses the long reach of experiences between these four men collide into each other by a merger between two oil companies. The oil companies merge because one desires what the other has. The other has the desire for power. This lust for power leaves an immigrant unemployed and shattered and ready to do anything for a chance in bettering his life. The merger gets the notice of a Saudi emir who has recently acquired a contract from the Chinese government. This in turn causes a two pronged attack between an American businessman who wants the Chinese contract voided and the CIA who send in an agent to eliminate the man responsible for the deal, The foreign minister to the emir.
Syriana’s strengths as a film come from the knowledge and power of Gaghan’s words and camera choices. The stark up close shots, and fantastic landscape shots bring an epic feel to a story that continues to constrict into itself as the story comes close to its climactic payoff for all involved. Every moment of the story felt essential. Every piece of the puzzle brought home a story that displays a truth that few can see.
The craft of the acting cast, both big and small, was a boon to the film. Clooney looks like a burned out CIA man who has been sent on a mission that should end him. Damon portrays the scummy analyst with such bile and hate that one does not feel sorry for him and the tragedy that befalls him. Wright’s portrayal as a lawyer on a deadline to suit his employers, weaves between moral certainty and decay at lightning speed in any moment of the film, is one of the best performances in years.
Alexander Siddig, the doctor from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a fantastic turn as the emir’s son, the foreign minister whose ambition is greater than his frame of reality. Even Amanda Peet plays a small role, but her moments in the film bring out the real human cost of greed. The great triumph of the film is that it makes every character human. Lazy filmmaking would make someone the villain and someone a hero. And leave us with simple conclusions that have nothing to do with reality. In Syriana, everyone has feet of clay.
The state of modern movies is such that films of great value to the community never have a real opportunity to see the light of day. This film entertains. It also makes one think about the way life is lived. It carries its politics on its sleeve and because of that Syriana is not a film for everyone. It is uncomfortable moviemaking for folks who are expecting a traditional thriller, or a condemnation of an ethnicity due to what is politically chic to culture conservatives. Syriana places a human face to the suffering that comes from the greed for oil and how everyone loses when you try and change the world.
- Francis Davis a career drunk with a love of comics and movies, lives in and works for the City of Chicago. Confidentiality agreements prevent him from saying exactly what he does, but it is important.