Syriana film review

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SYRIANA

If there were an award for most complicated film of the year, then Syriana would be a strong contender. This vast, layered film which centres on the world's oil crisis is written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who also wrote Traffic, and if you have seen the Oscar-winner from 2000 you'll be familiar with the way in which characters are introduced in an unconventional way and storylines interweave in an often obscure fashion. Syriana takes this style one (or two) steps further, and this is its chief problem: it's simply going to go over the head of a lot of people. It would be a challenge for anyone to recount the whole plot and all of its intricacies.

What the film does achieve however, is to spell out starkly the danger the planet faces from its over-reliance on oil. There's not enough of it, it's running out and dodgy deals already being struck to secure the next pipeline. One of the chief problems is America's selfish need to continue its policy of supplying cheap gas to its road users. According to the fiction of the film, this leads to oil companies going to all sorts of nefarious lengths to secure contracts with emerging former-Soviet nations, while at the same time placating the traditional source of fuel: the Middle East.

A multitude of characters bring the various stories alive. George Clooney - in serious mode, with an unfashionable beard and a paunch - plays a jaded CIA agent who has spent years undercover in the Middle East and is now on one final mission which eventually leads to the film's highly publicized torture scene. Meanwhile Matt Damon plays an ambitious young oil banker whose moral integrity is questioned after a tragic accident at one of his wealthy client's mansions.

Back in the States, Chris Cooper is an oil baron ready to break whatever rules are necessary in order to ensure his next contract, while Jeffrey Wright plays a Washington investigator looking into the way such deals are carried out. If this all sounds convoluted, that's because it is. It's hard to empathise with any of the characters due to the manner in which they flit on and off screen, and that is perhaps one of the points of the film. The global oil market is so complex with so many different factors involved that for anyone to sit down and explain it all would clearly take longer than the film's running time.