Traffic writer-director
Stephen Gaghan tackles the oil industry using interwoven story lines, involving
executives, Arab princes, lawyers, and the CIA. It’s similar to but somewhat
less compelling than its predecessor.
Here’s one I expected to like more than I did. Written and
directed by Traffic scribe Stephen Gaghan, Syriana seemed like it
would tackle the subject of the oil industry the way Traffic did the
illegal drug industry. Inspired by rather than adapted from a nonfiction work,
it has the feel of authenticity found in Traffic and missing from films
like Lord of War, about the arms trade. It takes place on four
continents and in at least four languages. (Significant segments are in
subtitled Farsi, Arabic, and French, and the major characters include not only
Americans but also an Arab prince and a Pakistani guest worker displaced by
Chinese from his job with an American oil company.) Its big-business characters
exude power rather than flash. Occasional handheld camera work, lots of
unscripted-sounding dialogue, and low-key, dissonant music give it an edgy,
sometimes quasi-documentary feel. Matt Damon, a paunchy George Clooney, and
Chris Cooper are the best-known among the cast. Also impressive was Jeffrey
Wright as the poker-faced junior attorney hired by the oil company whose
impending merger with a rival (in order to obtain the rival’s contract to drill
in Kazakhstan) sort of connects all the players.
Why was I disappointed? Partly
because it’s confusing. A good deal of the movie is just setup, and I think I
still only half got the relation of the Clooney character (a veteran CIA agent)
to everyone else. I think I might like the movie better if I watched it again.
Once I got the thread of what was going on, I wanted to see what would happen,
but I never thought the characters were as strong as in Traffic. Damon,
an energy consultant who thinks he can make money doing good, is almost as
interesting as Benicio del Toro’s honest cop in Traffic; Cooper as the
oil executive is a little less fleshed-out than Michael Douglas’s drug czar.
And so on. There’s also an absence of the connection to ordinary folks,
excepting the guest worker, whose story is both the least complex and the least
compelling. (Amanda Peet as Damon’s wife might also fall in this category.)
Gaghan’s movie depicts a world where corruption flows like oil and
self-interest supersedes integrity. So what else is new? If you didn’t like Traffic,
and if your eyes glaze over at the mention of the phrase “international
geopolitics,” I imagine that Syriana will bore you to tears. If not,
recommended with reservations.
circulated via email 12/15/05 and posted 9/20/13
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