Syriana (2005)
Written and Directed by Stephen Gaghan

Both written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who previously wrote the award winning (and massively overrated) Traffic, Syriana is miles ahead in terms of the story and the overall look. I will say this now, I hated Traffic. I thought it was an over-written, cliched, bloated mess of a film made even worse by Steven Soderbergh's binge direction.

Syriana fixes those problems. The story is extremely complex and detailed, but remains interwoven and almost simplistic in its intricacies. Everything affects everything else, as the tagline states "Everything is connected." There may be dozens of people involved with one single issue, but in the end it boils down to something very simple: money. Oil is money. Oil is in the Middle East. We want it, so do the Chinese. It becomes more and more complex the more layers are added.

There are about a dozen stories running parallel at the same time. Some are connected directly, like Bryan Woodman (Damon) who, after suffering a personal tragedy while attending a party in hopes of gaining a client, becomes the financial advisor to Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, who hopes to gain power and help bring some sense of stability to his region. Unlike most leaders in his position, he actually seems to be genuine, hoping to do away with many of the archaic ways of the past and bring a semblance to his country and its economy. Unfortunately, the US and its interests don't want this to happen. Other stories are connected in nothing more than pieces of paper, as a legal advisor in Washington tries to bring about actions in the face of an impending merger between two major oil corporations.

We also follow smaller stories, like Bob Barnes (Clooney) who ends up in Beirut, caught in both a physical and financial battle between two sides, both of which he works for in some capacity. Or watching a suicide bomber from start to finish. I actually wish they had spent more time on that story, I thought it was very well done. Watching it start with the oil conflict, moving to the physical conflict.

It was actually quite interesting watching how the different stories interacted. Woodman's story was the physical, the up close down and dirty side of the business. On the opposite side, the lawyers and political aspects, where war is fought on paper. In the middle, the man caught between both sides, playing the fence. And beginning on one end of the spectrum, a confused man with nothing left crosses over and completes the cycle.

It all moves extremely fast, throwing out terms and numbers and names like there's no tomorrow. But it doesn't matter, because even if you have literally no clue what's going on you are still immersed in it, still following along. After a while the names mean nothing, everything becoming the faces of the people as they interact. Just as characters recognize people, you will recognize people. In the time it takes for something to change, a single glance can say a lot more than a name.

The direction was incredible compared to Traffic. Gone are the changing color schemes and the seemingly random jump cuts. In is a camera that always retains some sense of motion, helping keep pace with the frantic actions often on screen. Also in are some of the most beautiful looking establishing shots I've seen in... well, ever. You watch the aerial shot of the massive oil plant stretched out on the desert floor and tell me your first impression wasn't 'Wow.' The vast expanses of sand, the endless dunes, or one shot in particular I really liked that showed an entire city, this stark grey urban landscape jutting out of the brown sands, construction cranes scattered at random.

This one is definitely a future addition to the collection, and is easily one of the best movies I've seen this year. Looking at it from a simply cinematic viewpoint, I think this is actually the best I've seen. If you have any interest in movies that are complex enough to constantly make you think, intriguing enough to always keep you interested, and nice enough looking to keep you from ever looking away then you need to see this movie.

For a while i felt confused with this movie it was jumping all of the place using business talk and it was too fast too soon to peice characters together. That was for the first 1 and a half hours of the movie too! Or first hour i forgot how long it was. In the last hour, when things start to pull together the movie blew me away. It's a great movie to talk about and definately has strong messages about how our government as well as foreign governments have interests that can be purely business and they can execute these interests very ruthlessly.
This movie deals with real world problems but a semi fictional story. I know that it is BASED off a book written by an NSA agent. I'm not positive if it is a non fiction work, but if it is, I'm sure it's just some of the ideas and business interests presented in the movie. This movie gives a clear much needed message that people of our time need to wake up to (not to voice my political concerns) but is not entirely needed when the news media is making things clear. however it's a great movie to talk about afterwards