SYRIANA

By Rachel Deahl
Review Film Critic

        In the world screenwriter Stephen Gaghan introduced in Traffic, the Steven Soderbergh-directed Oscar-winning 2000 film about the international drug trade, the butterfly effect was put to ingenious use. Like an insect flapping its wings in New York and changing the weather in San Francisco, a drug czar in South America sends out his latest shipment and the daughter of a politician in Washington takes a life-changing (and potentially policy-altering) hit of heroin. In other words everything is connected and, as Traffic so earnestly showed, a thug drug dealer in the ghetto is as much a part (and victim) of our overarching, corrupt political system as the naïve suburbanite who buys his drugs.
 
This is also the case with Syriana, Gaghan's latest effort, which he both wrote and directed. The film, which forces a complex thread through a disparate group of character-driven narrative that center around the geopolitics of the oil trade, works on a strikingly similar plane (and to strikingly similar effect) as Traffic; it's a refreshingly political Hollywood film that, in oversimplifying its subject matter, also manages to offer intelligent insight into a topic that, at the very least, we need to be paying more attention to.
 
Of course what Syriana dissects is not a new issue. And its tale of wealthy American oil corporations, with strong government ties, making disastrous deals in the Middle East (that ensure political instability and ultimately spark more terrorist activities) is one that's been told countless times and in countless ways in the news and in books. That "average" Americans supposedly can't be bothered to pay attention to either of those is what makes> Syriana, on the very basest level, refreshing.
 
Featuring a cast, which despite being led by George Clooney isn't quite as "all-star" as Traffic was, Syriana zigzags from Washington to Texas to Switzerland to the Middle East in tracking its circuitous storyline. The spark, so to speak, that sets the wheels in motion is the impending merger of two major Texas oil companies. The merger, sparking the scrutiny of the Justice Department, places an up-and-coming attorney (Jeffrey Wright) at a private law firm to trail the business dealings of the two companies and ensure that nothing can be found by the government to block the deal. The deal, which relies heavily on the companies maintaining the access to coveted oil fields in the Middle East, is imperiled when a reform-seeking Lebanese prince (Alexander Siddig) is in line to succeed his aging father to the throne.

 
Struggling to outpace his self-absorbed younger brother for the chance to lead his country, the prince winds up attached to a hopeful energy analyst (Matt Damon) who becomes his financial advisor. With American business interests reliant on maintaining a hold over Middle East leaders, a longtime CIA operative (George Clooney) is assigned to kill the forward-thinking prince trying for the throne in Lebanon. And, as the oil fields in Gulf change hands through the maneuverings of American companies, two young migrant laborers toiling in the fields see their jobs disappear and wind up joining a religious terrorist cell.
 
That Syriana manages to link the movements of Texas oilmen rather directly to that of young Pakistani suicide bombers may be excessive but, like Traffic, it mostly works. That much of the film foregoes the personal in favor of the political-despite the more emotional story of the young would-be suicide bombers and the fact that Matt Damon's character is motivated largely by the sudden and accidental death of his young son-Syriana remains somewhat detached because it is so focused on the big picture.
 
Even the subtler subplot of Jeffrey Wright's character, a black attorney making his way up in both a white firm and the strikingly white power structure of Washington at large, is muted to a point of dismissal. Nonetheless, the big picture stuff that Syriana captures is stirring and, despite coming off as somewhat chilly in the process, the film manages a cohesive, concise story about a complex and far-reaching historical and political saga.

 
Will moviegoers leave the theater and, as they go to fill up their SUV ruminate on their own effect on the political and financial infrastructure of some Middle Eastern country (and in turn our own national security)? Probably not, but it's hopeful that at least one major Hollywood movie is planting that seed.

Grade: A-