Syriana

[Harold_Z]

I figured he was trying to warn the guy that there was a CIA hit out on him. A little late on that, as it turned out.

Must be.

[AllenLowe]

the lack of clarity n Sytriana is, IMHO, just bad filmmaking and writing - thre's just not enough in that movie to make it worthwhile, though Clooney is good and works very hard. Nothing makes sense, and the pieces of the "puzzle" have a false sense of importance about them. Why does the car blow up at the beginning? Who cares about the drunken father? Why, indeed, does Clooney fly 10,000 miles to help a shallow and not-particularly important character? WHo cares about another movie about big oil and its conspiracies, when we've seen this a thousand times, and when the movie gives us nothing new or particularly interesting? If these HOllywood guys have any real guts why don't they make a political movie about the current state of the USA and not about the same old same old?

Edited December 30, 2005 by AllenLowe

[sal]

the lack of clarity n Sytriana is, IMHO, just bad filmmaking and writing - thre's just not enough in that movie to make it worthwhile, though Clooney is good and works very hard. Nothing makes sense, and the pieces of the "puzzle" have a false sense of importance about them. Why does the car blow up at the beginning? Who cares about the drunken father? Why, indeed, does Clooney fly 10,000 miles to help a shallow and not-particularly important character? WHo cares about another movie about big oil and its conspiracies, when we've seen this a thousand times, and when the movie gives us nothing new or particularly interesting? If these HOllywood guys have any real guts why don't they make a political movie about the current state of the USA and not about the same old same old?

Just out of curiosity....what other movies are Syriana the "same" as?

[AllenLowe]

political paranoia movies - Manchurian Candidate (1&2), Chain Reaction, Face in the Crowd - that's just three to start - there's more, I'll have to pull out my film reference works, but, believe me, I've seen that plot many times before -

my point is that these movies deal with the idea of big/dangerous corporate conspiratorial evil - something which I agree exists - but Syriana has nothing new to say about it -

[RonF]

Probably will see it on DVD someday. Can't stand Matt Damon. Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck is a masterpiece. See that! Dianne Reeves will turn you to butter. Saw The Squid and the Whale with Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney last night with our daughter. Beautiful, well-crafted film. Great acting. Funny, sad, profound - about a family of four splitting up in Brooklyn, in the 80s. Noah Baumbach directs.

[Guy Berger]

Just saw this tonight. Good movie, not great. It gave my mom and cousin a good opportunity to practice their Arabic.

Guy

[Alexander]

I just saw it tonight, and I thought it was VERY good. I didn't find the plot difficult to follow at all, but the film does leave one asking a number of questions.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

I, too, wondered just what Clooney's character hoped to accomplish by stopping Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig). Was he trying to warn him? Was he trying to take him out himself? And, I had to wonder, was Matt Damon's character in on the hit the whole time? It seemed a little too convenient that Damon moved to a different car when he did. Was it blind luck? Did he suspect something? Or did he KNOW something?

Watching this film, I was reminded of a quote from Alan Moore: "In espionage's twilight world, all shadows have substance." I think part of the point in this film was that most of these characters wear more than one mask and their allegience is transitory at best. It also does a great job of showing the law of "unintended consequences." Alexander Siddig's deal with the Chinese is what loses the oil-field worker his job and leads him to terrorism. George Clooney's hit on the arms dealers at the beginning goes awry and one of the missles goes missing, only to turn up in the hands of the oil-field worker when he becomes a suicide bomber. Clooney's superiors sell him out when one of their deals goes sour. The African-American lawyer sells out his own superior in order to secure the merger between the two oil companies. The common denominator is the oil. People will do anything to anyone in order to have it. I think the film succeeds very well...