Syriana: The Film America Had Coming

While sports fans conjuror up the fantasy team rosters of their wildest dreams, Section 8 films lived out a fantasy casting experience. The list: an aging, but handsome CIA spook coming to terms with his unquestioned past. A young blued-eyed American who's financial consulting tosses him into a game of Iranian Royalty rivalry. An unlikely Washington Bureaucrat climbing the ranks by taking names from the buried files of statesmen with oil-stained pockets. Lots of Texas good ole boys in pinstripes with a gleam in the eye for power, but creases in their brows from skeletons knocking on their closet doors.

Any admirer of political intrigue would go to town on this casting call and 'Syriana' did no less. George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Christopher Plummer and Tim Blake Nelson all hammer masterful performances. Clooney himself is a prophesied contender for Best Actor nominee by AC's own Irvin C ('Oscar 2005: Who you're gonna vote for?'10/24/05).

Fantasy aside, while the rest of the box-office is giddy with Goblets, Lions, Witches, and 50-foot gorillas, Gaghan's adaptation of Baer's novel burns close to a truth we're forced to ignore. Gaghan, Soderbergh and Clooney are provoking a controversial issue that will no more alarm than it will summarize what a majority of American audiences already believe.

The script's multiple view points does justice to the complex web of corruption dancing around the oil fields of the gulf region. No one story can embody Oil's grasp on the world as it's not a tale of good guys and bad guys, but there are car chases and explosions. There are honest people working with the best intentions at America's Oil companies, but no more than the heartfelt intentions of the Arab world's disaffected youth who bomb their pipelines.

One of the few moments of clarity in the film come in a scene where an energy analyst (Matt Damon) puts the oil end game in perspective for an Iranian Prince (Alexander Siddig). After being denied access to a meeting between American Lawyers and Iranian Oil Barons, the prince peers through the window and asks Damon's character "what are they thinking in there." Damon responds as any energy analyst would about the depletion of the "century's greatest natural resource."

Like most of the film's dialogue, his response is statistically packed with figures on oil, U.S. military spending and Muslim demographics. I'll restrain revealing the essence of his statement for the simple reason that if you care about how Oil is affecting global relations, then you must see this film. Another moment of clarity happens between the energy analyst and Iranian Prince when Damon draws a metaphorical line in the sand accompanied by a jump cut to Texas where Jeffrey Wright's D.C. bureaucrat and Chris Cooper's Oil exec talk business and blood on a hunting trip.

This jump cut is one of many in the brilliantly schizophrenic editing of Tim Squyres, whose collaborations with director Ang Lee and documentary work have proved a perfect culmination for Syriana. Imagine Ang Lee's 'The Ice Storm' mating recent Enviro-policy documentary 'Oil on Ice,' and what births is Syriana. Another ingenious Squyres jump cut is from Damon's wife (played by his own Amanda Peet) talking about not coddling her son's autonomy as he hesitates diving into a pool, to a pack of Arab teens roaming the desert.

It's an effective contrast between the child rearing psychobabble of affluent westerners and the desperation of those denied a childhood to look for labor jobs with the Oil companies said rich westerners own. If you have any inkling of the film's premise, then there is no question of the connections between Iranian Royalty, the CIA, D.C., The energy industry and disaffected Muslim youth. Yet hidden throughout is how the characters that epitomize each sector will crash after tumbling down Peak Oil. Just as in Soderbergh and Gaghan's 'Traffic', we sit waiting for the climatic crash of inevitability in the lives of people stripped of humanity.

This is a film America had coming to it and we should be thankful its from the minds of artists like Gaghan, Soderbergh and Clooney. It could have been a machismo fest from Jerry Bruckheimer if Hollywood had its way. 'Syriana' is a dose of reality with a touch of intrigue without the sex and will leave you feeling more ambiguous about the Gulf Wars then you did sitting through the previews like an unassuming consumer.

In a scene when Clooney and William Hurt's character meet secretly in a Cineplex, it befits the entire experience of the film. Clooney, as an ex-CIA agent is beginning to question his role in the government, probing the motives of the people who fed him orders. They sit in the dark theater, searching for answers hoping to shed a little light for those who care to ask why.

Though not much is answered, the morality of second-guessing those in charge is hopeful, but alas it reinforces the stereotypes we hold of the Arab world, Oil execs and the foreign policy that lets it happen. Leaving the theater, questions turned to frustrations, frustrations to powerlessness, probably the film's intention, but despite a cold December night my "walk" home was a momentary breath of clear conscience from western guilt.