Film Review: "Syriana" (2005)

This film attempts to reduce the complexities of high finance and oil politics into something digestible for those who exemplify the T-shirt slogan "who needs books when you've got TV?". Despite a valiant attempt to do just that, it fails miserably and in fact, has the opposite effect.

If you've ever written an academic thesis, you've probably had your faculty advisor tell suggest to you that you need to reduce the scope of your argument - well, someone should have said the same thing to screenwriter Stephen Gaghan about this script. The effect is twofold: first, the plot seems to be made up it goes along, and secondly, Syriana seems complex for complexity's sake. That may may endear it to those who enjoy a healthy dose of pretense with their based-on-real-events cinematic dramas, but personally, I much preferred Gaghan's previous effort "Traffic", which was a textbook example of how a topical and important issue can be treated through film by keeping it within a certain frame of reference. By contrast, watching the (literally) all-over-the-map "Syriana" feels like work (which is not an effective use of the medium, in my opinion).

In the end, if you haven't seen "Syriana" yet, my advice is to just skip it and read "The World is Flat" for a treatment of these and other issues that is layperson-friendly. And if you have seen it, read "The World is Flat" anyways. You'll learn something.

Here's hoping Gaghan returns to form with his next effort.

Overall rating: 4/10