Movie Review - Syriana
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2005 / 126 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
“Syriana” is about oil, international politics, terrorism, law, and greed. It tackles big subjects without flinching from the unsettling aspects of each subject. It is well acted and extremely ambitious.
It is also, without a doubt, one of the most boring films in recent memory. If you compare watching a movie to reading a book then movies like the recent “King Kong” are like reading a great Stephen King or John Irving novel: big, messy, full of emotion, ultimately riveting page turners. “Syriana” is like reading through a spreadsheet of facts. Its interesting, at first, but after while your eyes start to glaze over.
“Syriana” has multiple stories to tell. One is the story of a government operative and his operations in Beirut (George Clooney, with a beard). One is the story of two Middle Eastern boys who eventually become suicide bombers. One is the story of a businessman (Matt Damon) who becomes the financial advisor for a Middle Eastern prince (Alexander Siddig). One is the story of a lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) who represents an oil company and is called upon by a government official to expose shady dealings within that company. These stories are all about global politics in relation to the Middle East and they all expose different facets of that larger theme…at least, in theory.
The actors all do a commendable job. Siddig and Damon, in particular, are excellent. Thanks to their fine work, their story is the most compelling of the entire film. Chris Cooper and Tim Blake Nelson are also quite good, adding much needed flair to tales they are in. I also admire the ambition of the film and its scope. It wants to explore all the problems and moral quagmires involved in the Middle East and its dealings. The film is at its best in several speeches and monologues peppered throughout the film that cut right to the heart of the matter and deliver excellent summations and analysis of events and situations we see in the news every day. Some of this dialogue was stimulating and enlightening.
It’s a pity we couldn’t have had more of that because, for the majority of its running length, this film is about as much fun as a night of watching C-SPAN. I wanted to like this film. Really, I did. It’s got potentially fascinating subject matter, and it is subject matter that is overdue for the hard-hitting treatment that a film like “Traffic” could offer into this matter. It’s by the writer of “Traffic” and produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, so comparisons to that earlier film are perhaps inevitable. However, such comparisons are bound to illustrate what is wrong with this film. Like “Traffic”, this movie does not compromise what it has to say in order to provide flashy, crowd-pleasing entertainment. Nor do I ask it to do so. That’s not the problem. The problem with “Syriana” is that it is murky. To be fascinating and interesting, we must truly understand what is going on and the motivations behind it. It’s not surprising that the story of oil company malfeasance is a bit confusing. After all, we are dealing with legal factors here, and legalese is a language all its own. But, in the story of the two teens who become suicide bombers, we never get a good grasp on why they make such a choice. Sure, the oil company they work for fires them, but I wish the movie had given us more emotional investment in this pair and more information at how they arrived at this choice. They are so blandly sketched and so poorly developed that, though we know from the beginning how their plot will turn out, we don’t understand much about them or their situation. We’re given a thimble of time to spend with them, and that time isn’t even all that interesting. It tells us of their desperation, but it never makes us feel it.
That’s the main problem here. The film has no flair, no spark. If this movie were directed by a guy like Martin Scorsese or Steven Soderbergh, I have no doubt that it would have suspense and momentum, two qualities it desperately requires but is lacking. Most scenes in this movie consist of two people talking about things we get little information about. Most of the time we, as an audience, must struggle to determine what, precisely, they are talking about. And even then, the movie has no creative thrust to make this as fascinating as it should be. It doesn’t flesh out its characters very well (the only plot that is shaded with the detail and nuance it requires is that of Damon and the Arabian prince, that material is quite well done) and it doesn’t provide a grasp on the material that is required if we are really to understand and care about it. And, yet, it seems like a lot of this material is being stretched out simply to beef up the length. Late in the film, it finally develops a rhythm, a propulsive pulse. But it’s too late. The separate threads of the film never gel as they should either. Characters appear with little purpose and disappear again without having added anything to the narrative. Moments of the movie are powerful, but the film is so dry and blandly rendered that these nuggets of power ultimately wilt like flowers stranded in the desert that dominates the film.
I admire what director and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan was attempting to do here. I just can’t help thinking what a better filmmaker would have done with this material, how powerful this material might have been in the hands of a director like Scorsese or Soderbergh or, particularly, P.T. Anderson: guys with the storytelling and technical prowess to tell a story with this weight without compromise while adding the momentum and flair necessary to keep us riveted. The editing should have been much tighter. The music could have added a bit more flavor (or, really, any at all). The cinematographer might have done something a bit more interesting with the camera. Any number of things would have enhanced this experience.
It’s not a terrible movie and, as I said, I appreciate its ambition. I just wish there was a little more to appreciate about “Syriana”.
