MOVIE REVIEW: Syriana

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

They were right, Fat Clooney delivers. George Clooney's Bob Barnes is the heart of Syriana and he gives the best performance of his career. Conveying an undercurrent of despair absent from his previous performances, Clooney's weariness and disillusionment mirror the mood of the whole film. Syriana was #2 on my list of most anticipated films of the fall and perhaps that is why I was a touch disappointed when I left the theater. It is undoubtably an accomplished film worthy of great praise. It tackles issues movies rarely touch and doesn't pull any punches. (Given its politics, it was a small miracle the producers got anyone to pay for it.) It tells a complicated and sometimes confusing tale without really stopping to explain anything to the audience. Instead, it immerses us into a world where politics and business are one and the same and forces us to figure out the connections between each character and their actions. Few movies are this smart and treat their audiences the same.

Gaghan won an Oscar for writing the brillian Traffic and Syriana is an obvious companion piece. It you liked Soderbergh's see-how-everything-connects film about the illegal drug trade, then you will undoubtably like this film. But make no mistake, Traffic is a superior film. All three of its storylines were compelling and sometimes breathless whereas I would argue Syriana only has one (Fat Clooney) that really succeeds. The Matt Damon and Jeffrey Wright sections are interesting, but in the end, are missing the emotional component of say the Michael Douglas trying-to-find-his-daughter section of Traffic. Hell, even the Catherine Zeta-Jones part was more interesting and she was completely dispicable right from the start. It's not that Damon and Wright are not good, it's just that their stories seem a little lacking. Usually I think films are too long, but Syriana is one that may have been better a little longer.

I know this review sounds like a negative but it really isn't. In fact, in the week since I've seen it, my opinions of Syriana have only grown more positive. But I think if you see it with slightly lowered expectations (or at least not sky-high like mine), you will enjoy it more.