Why this movie: If, with everything going on in the world these days, you’re looking for a gripping political thriller about the struggle for oil and power in the Middle East, you should check out Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana, a movie structured around multiple storylines and morally compromised protagonists. (Gaghan also wrote the similarly complex, multiple-plotline screenplay for Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, about the US’s “war on drugs.”) One of the many fine qualities of Syriana, like Traffic, is that it doesn’t sacrifice complexity for pacing. It doesn’t dumb down the story for the viewer, yet still managed to keep me on the edge of my seat.
The ensemble cast includes George Clooney—a middle-aged CIA operative tasked with assassinating an emir; Jeffrey Wright—a lawyer running due diligence on a merger between two oil companies. Matt Damon and Amanda Peet play a well-off couple whose son dies in an accident at a lavish party hosted by Prince Nasir, the heir to an oil-rich kingdom. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Damon’s character decides to stay on in the country and become the reform-minded prince’s adviser. And then there’s the Pakistani laborer played by Mazhar Munir, who’s drawn to radical Islam. All grapple with the lure of power, politics, and belief, which takes them in different directions.
What they said: Gaghan described the questions he was struggling with while working on the script post 9/11: “Where are we going? We’re declaring an axis of evil. We’re talking about evildoers. We’re talking about crusades. We’re going into Afghanistan. We’re going into Iraq. We’re rattling swords at Iran, Syria. This is precipitous and it really affects us. It affects me.”
Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan. With George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Amanda Peet, Mazhar Munir. 2 hours 2 minutes.
Streaming on multiple platforms.
