"Syriana," one of the most thought-provoking films of 2005, confronts many issues. Oil. Big business. The government we see. The government we
don't see. The Middle East. Power. Corruption. Wealth. Desperation.
Though seemingly separate, everything - as one of the movie's advertisements says - is connected. And the blood flowing throughout this complex machine is oil.
Writing about the detail- and nuance-intensive plot of "Syriana" would be rather difficult in this limited space. Suffice it to say that, just as in writer/director Stephen Gaghan's other brilliant screenplay "Traffic," the myriad plotlines interweave and intersect with each other in such a deliciously complex way that a single viewing doesn't do the movie justice. Even after seeing it a second time, some minor questions remain. But that's just the point.
Who people
really are and why they're
really doing what they're doing - and who's
really in charge - remains purposely vague throughout "Syriana." There are no "good guys" or "bad guys," only characters looking out for interests not necessarily their own: Government agents doing the dirty work of oil men doing the bidding of mysterious power brokers beholden to foreign powers at odds with super powers. "Syriana" is a movie of shadows. Shadowy people. Shadowy organizations. Shadowy goals. Do those claiming to have the United States' best interests at heart really do? Or do they have their own? Or someone else's?
Gaghan's movie is a wonderful treatise on power in modern society. Who holds it. Who really holds it. How it controls. How it corrupts. When the Abramoffian superlobbyist Danny Dalton (Tim Blake Nelson) confronts attorney Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), he says, "Corruption is why we win." He's right, and in "Syriana" - as in real life - the "we" in that assertion isn't certain. Is it the oil companies? Is it the government? Is it the American people? And that confusion, further, is also why the "we" in that statement win - not only in the movie, but also in America. The less Americans know about their government, the less they care, the more those truly in power have the opportunity to do as they wish without fear of examination.
That uncertainty is perhaps the most brilliant outcome of "Syriana." In a climate where there are truly no "our sides" and "their sides," the forces we're conditioned to view as our "enemies" may, in fact, be quite the opposite. Terrorist dictators we work hard to remove from power may very well be reform-minded leaders simply at odds with American economic interests. "Syriana" also puts you in the minds of suicide bombers, leaving you questioning our view of the "evildoers" who hate our freedom. Confronting those previously held beliefs - dispelling the notion that the United States is always on the right side of things - is the payoff to enjoying "Syriana."
Gaghan has crafted a marvelous piece of filmmaking. Like a good conductor, he was able to make the movie's ensemble cast perform well together, each plotline serving its role well and moving the story forward. His main character, Bob Barnes (George Clooney), is the CIA operative whose real-life inspiration, Bob Baer, wrote the book on which much of the movie is based. Clooney, who impressed in "Good Night, and Good Luck," excels in "Syriana" as an agent learning more and more about the forces behind his actions.
Wright - tremendous in "Broken Flowers" - also impresses as Holiday, a corporate lawyer facing the dilemma of having to overlook wrongdoing to help ease the merger of two oil companies. Equally noteworthy are Matt Damon as a promising young oil broker and Alexander Siddig as an idealistic prince taking Damon's character as a trusted advisor. While it would be impossible - and impossibly boring - to laud the entire cast, two other performances worthy of praise were Blake Nelson's slimy lobbyist and Christopher Plummer's Dean Whiting, the shadowy figure - perhaps a lawyer, perhaps not - seemingly behind every plot.
Whiting and others in "Syriana" grasp what most people in America either can't or refuse to recognize - that everything is connected and that, at the end of the day, the "everything" begins and ends with one thing: Oil. The planet is running out of it and, as long as the real-life Whitings of the world hold sway, expect our presence in the Middle East to remain more permanent than temporary, more oppressive than progressive. Until and unless the government sees fit to serve the American people and not the oil interests represented in "Syriana," rumors of a precipitous withdrawal from the area will remain just that.
Perhaps those critics passing off "Syriana" as too confusing are missing these key points - that the fictional confusion mirrors reality and that oil - above all else - is the driving force behind these conflicts. Once we can admit to ourselves that the power hungry propelled America to war over oil, we can honestly face the uncertain future dead ahead. Until that time, as confusion reigns, so, too, will those profiting on the blood of others.
