2005 Directed by Stephen Gaghan
The Middle Eastern oil industry is the backdrop of this tense drama, which weaves together numerous story lines. Bennett Holiday is an American lawyer in charge of facilitating a dubious merger of oil companies, while Bryan Woodman, a Switzerland-based energy analyst, experiences both personal tragedy and opportunity during a visit with Arabian royalty. Meanwhile, veteran CIA agent Bob Barnes uncovers an assassination plot with unsettling origins.
George Clooney Matt Damon Jeffrey Wright Chris Cooper Amanda Peet William Hurt Christopher Plummer Alexander Siddig Kayvan Novak Amr Waked Robert Foxworth Nicky Henson Nicholas Art Steven Hinkle Daisy Tormé Peter Gerety Richard Lintern Mazhar Munir Jocelyn Quivrin Shahid Ahmed Bikram Singh Bhamra Roger Yuan Jamey Sheridan Randall Boffman Max Minghella Nadim Sawalha Akbar Kurtha Sonnell Dadral Tim Blake Nelson Show All…
Syriana - Korruption ist alles, Syriana: A Indústria do Petróleo, 辛瑞纳, 辛瑞那, ซีเรียนา ฉีกฉ้อฉล วิกฤติข้ามโลก, Сириана, סוריאנה, Sziriana, シリアナ, სირიანა, 시리아나, Sirijana, Сиріана, 諜對諜
Politics and human rights High speed and special ops War and historical adventure political, democracy, documentary, president or propaganda political, president, historical, politician or democracy terrorism, thriller, gripping, intense or political spy, agent, intrigue, thriller or suspense war, soldiers, combat, military or fought Show All…
I don't care that nobody seems to understand the plot. I don't care that it's didactic. I don't care that "serious people" find the geopolitical analysis puerile. I love Stephen Gaghan's Syriana because it's the only American film to seriously and thoughtfully engage with the "war on terror." Every other Hollywood product either exploits the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an easy background for action scenes or to make rather banal points about the traumatic effects of war on those who fight them. Syriana, on the other hand, examines the moral implications of our oil-based economy with deftly intertwined stories of terrorists, CIA officers and sheiks. There's just enough time spent teasing out the characters to make you care…
Seeing all the two star reviews for this film on this site has left me feeling despondent. "Syriana" is one of the best films I've seen attempting to tackle the multifaceted fuckery of the CIA and the US state departments economic colonisation of the Middle East post-911.
This film, much like HBO's "The Wire," looks at almost every level of the so called 'War on Terror.' The film focuses on several loosely interlocking stories from a CIA agent played by George Clooney who gets burned, to Matt Damon finding himself becoming one of the Iranian Prince's top advisers after a personal tragedy.
This film covers the exploitation of oil companies and the deep rooted corruption that spills out during a…
The one thing that works really well about Syriana is Matt Damon. His character, surrounding storyline and performance are the only aspects of the movie that I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. He brings a lot of depth to a surprisingly interesting character. I liked the interactions with his family and how the movie showcased his personal matters interfering with his professional matters. The rest of it didn’t click with me, leaving me wanting a lot more. The movie tries to be like some weird combination of Magnolia and Babel but unfortunately it lacks a lot of talent to come close to those two. The directing was fairly bland, not allowing the movie to have anything even remotely creative from a…
Okay, so apparently George Clooney already had won an Oscar for his acting work and I didn't know.... now, I feel like my whole cinema being is a complete lie...
But seriously, I believe this movie came right or a year later before "Munich" came out. In this regard, its clear Spielberg's true political thriller is way much superior to this one in many aspects, both technical and acting wise.
That's not to say this is not a bad movie. Performances are all around great, and the story is decent, but at the same time if this is the film that gave Clooney his Oscar then its clear that was a career win. Also while there's lot of great stuff…
It is a scorching look at corruption in the oil industry. Syriana is an adult motion picture, made with mature viewers in mind.
Syriana was about the big bad world of oil politics through the eyes, lives and stories of a CIA agent, an energy analyst, a Pakistani immigrant, and a Washington attorney.
This movie is plot-driven from start to finish, and it needs all 126 minutes to tell the whole story. It takes approximately three-quarters of that time before we see the pattern as more than just a random interweaving of threads. Give up on or lose track of Syriana and the payoff won't be as powerful.
The film boasts of great performances. The film is geographically vast. The…
Mature, poignant, intelligent, relevant and powerful. A film that feels immense at times, with an approach that neglects any hand-holding and thrusts you directly and furiously into its world.
Stephan Gaghan used to be a talent to watch in this industry. I feel disappointed seeing his career trajectory play out like this lol.
I do feel like the narrative lacked focus and failed to deliver on many of the promising setups, but this was still a solid watch, grounded by a career-best performance from Clooney. This is not a satisfying film by any means, but stories of this nature are rarely satisfying in real life. This feels like cinematic journalism.
Although, we won't talk about his abysmal farsi accent lol.…
2005 was really the period when we got Serious George. Along with another film looking at the attempted assassination of Senator McCarthy, he pushed this Middle East oil project, grew a beard and put on some weight. Ten years on this remains as relevant as ever, perhaps even more so, given the ongoing terrorist attacks that can be sourced back to the real reason Iraq was invaded.
One of the main criticisms thrown at the film is it's over complicated nature, due to the amount of subplots taking place. It is certainly ambitious in trying to incorporate as many of the entangled threads of the regions politics as possible but difficult to understand? Only if reading about current affairs proves…
bro really went full garbage with simultaneous storytelling, bitch you ain't Inarritu
"It's complicated."
Interesting to note w/r/t the "politics" of this film, it's clearly anti-corporations, government, what have you, but the only solution it offers is the family. This is of course typical of any classical Hollywood narrative (the imaginary solution to the contradictory problem), but what makes Syriana interesting (but not good) is how it refuses to even mention environmental solutions at all (whether you believe in them or not is irrelevant , but its glaring omission here can only be subscribed to the whole "within the POV of the characters it chose"). So you have a supposed liberal film that forces you to "think," but the thinking is supposed to be centered around piecing together the network narrative, which…
I bought this the other day and thought it seemed interesting (when reading the synopsis) I mean I looked and it said George clooney, Matt Damon, political thriller sounds great, the reviews were great. So I watched it and well syriana is a very good film good acting, good story but at times a little boring and slightly dull, not all the time but sometime, its great moments were great.
Stephen Gaghan's "Syriana," as crisp and it is fragmented, is a potent geo-political drama unraveling with threads tied to the large scale buying and selling of the Middle Eastern oil. Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Christopher Plummer, Amanda Peet, and Chris Cooper, the handsomely cast work finds segmented storytelling communicating a tale of corruption, deception, and ambition with life and death stakes. The production has a well-heeled, expensive burr to it, and the performances allow the leads to move away from type. The film's disjunct episodes may dull the drama's impact, but "Syriana" is capably engaging stuff.
