Sergio's Fall Movie Countdown--#2

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

In a continuing series, Sergio reveals the ten films he is most looking forward to this fall.

2. Syriana
directed by Stephen Gaghan
opens 11/23 in select theaters, nationwide 12/9

Get ready for Fat Clooney. "Fat Clooney is one of the greatest things you'll see in a movie all year" said one anonymous journalist to Jeffrey Wells. Clooney plays a CIA intelligence officer that has spent his entire career tracking international terrorists. His story is part of the jigsaw puzzle that is Syriana, written and directed by Oscar-winner Stephen Gaghan (Traffic).

Gaghan spent eighteen months and $70,000 of the studio's money researching Syriana. He was initially introduced to the subject through Robert Baer's book See No Evil. (Clooney plays a slightly fictionalized version of Baer in the movie.) But the book had little narrative and gave no help in terms of plot. From Time:

For a year and a half, (Gaghan) read books on the Middle East in his Malibu beach house and then, at his leisure, jetted off to meet people he had read about. He crossed Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on the first anniversary of 9/11, dined with men now suspected of killing former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, and sipped cappuccino in the kitchen of former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Being a guy from Hollywood was often all it took to get people talking.

Like Traffic, Syriana has a multiple storyline approach. In addition to Clooney's CIA operative, the film follows a young energy industry analyst (Matt Damon) out to make a deal with an Arab sheik and a Washington lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) investigating a merger between two huge oil companies and the corruption that comes with the territory. Films like Jarhead and Three Kings have taken on the difficulties in the middle east, but each of them came out years after the actions they depict take place. Syriana could be happening today. Or even tomorrow. This story will never get old. The tagline for the movie is "Everything is Connected." You better believe it, brother. Am I paranoid? You're not paranoid enough.

Syriana has one of the best trailers of the year. (The poster is terrific, too.) The line that gets me is spoken by Tim Blake Nelson playing an oil-company hack.

"Corruption? Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why we win."

Dialogue like this give me chills. I love it in movies when people take the Indefensible Position. They try to seduce you into thinking up is down and black is white. Michael Douglas' "Greed is Good" speech from Wall Street is probably the best example, followed by Jack Nicholson's rant at the end of A Few Good Men. Syriana takes the issues and arguments of the middle east and the oil industries off the op-ed pages and puts them into a geo-political thriller that will be one of the most talked about movies of the year.

This is an angry film that demands attention. It is the kind socially aware thriller Hollywood used to make in the 70s that is virtually extinct today. It is going to be the kind of movie that draws attention to itself and forces people to ask questions. Look for "Syriana" to become the catch-all buzz word regarding oil industry malfeasance a la "Wag the Dog." The great William Goldman famously said: "No one wants to make a movie that depends on you pulling it off." Well, it looks like Gaghan and company have pulled it off. Get ready for Fat Clooney.

TOMORROW: After making his 9/11 movie, Hollywood's biggest director takes on the Israeli/Palestinian problem in the most anticipated movie of the fall.