Syriana Review, Trailer, Pic, Movie Poster

Syriana Review

Synopsis: Syriana has a lot of big, significant things to say about big, important things, and it says them with a spirit of urgency.

Syriana deals with the morally murky interactions between big business and government. Here, the petroleum and natural gas industries are the focus. The movie tells interrelated stories in knotted loops of simultaneity and jagged shards of documentary-style realism, with conspiracy on its mind and the piecemeal structure of "Traffic" as its screenwriting template, in good part because Stephen Gaghan, who wrote the Oscar-winning "Traffic" script for Steven Soderbergh, here writes and directs, too.

It's as earnestly, politically left-leaning as "Jarhead" is coyly apolitical; it's also the kind of movie that requires a viewer to work actively for comprehension, and to chalk up any lack of same to his or her own deficiency in the face of something so evidently smart.

However, Syriana forgets to provide any kind of emotional empathy. Like the title itself -- think-tank talk for a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East -- this is a working paper of ideas driven by hypothesis, rather than a compelling drama driven by compassion.

Syriana makes a point of circling the globe, with scenes shot in Geneva, Dubai, London, etc. -- it's a picture that displays datelines as a show of geopolitical bustle. And the speeches of even the most passing players are honed to draw blood. But what do those speeches say? They say, "We're talking about big, important things, so pay attention" -- and then make it a challenge to do so.