Review of Syriana (2005) by Manny C — 12 Jan 2011

This is what George Clooney had to say about the incendiary 2005 feature he executive-produced and in which he starred as Bob Barnes, a CIA agent entangled in the twisty tentacles of Big Oil and greed: 'It's going to get us in a lot of trouble.' That's the attitude of a man who knows that that the art of movies should be dangerous. A man who knows that if you toss a provocative gem like Syriana into multiplexes you should expect intense fire. Syriana, written and directed by Stephen Gaghan as if a life were at stake, is an electrifying thriller, a smart and combustible mix of muckraking journalism and emotional devastation. In the past decade Big Oil's corrupt influence seeped into nearly every aspect of our lives, in America and abroad. Whether it was the business interests in the Persian Gulf, or the financial squeeze of high gas prices, or most recently, the massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, that three letter word impacted many, and Syriana puts a face on those numbers and statistics. And no one is treated with kid gloves. Syriana moves with all the verve and feeling that makes you really believe a movie can make a difference.

Clooney himself is the best surprise. Never has he been so wired onscreen, his moral center fighting against self-imposed rot. Bearded and packing on thirty-five pounds, Clooney deftly takes us inside the head of a man who's been burned by everyone. Barnes, who Clooney plays, is struggling to put his son thru college, who has the ability to call for assassinations, particularly of Prince Nasir, for making an oil deal with China over the U.S. ('Hit him with a truck going fifty miles per hour'). He also endures torture and the pain of being abused by his own country. And Clooney never misses a beat. It's a haunting and hypnotic performance, one that deservedly gained Clooney and Oscar.

The film's source material is See No Evil, the 2002 memoir by former CIA operative Robert Baer. Gaghan uses the book as a starting point for a series of interlocking stories in the tradition of Steven Soderbergh's brilliant Traffic, all done in an immediate documentary feel. Matt Damon is excellent as Bryan Woodman, an energy analyst who coldly uses the death of his son in the house of Prince Nasir for his own selfish gain, much to the terror of his wife (lovely Amanda Peet). Jeffrey Wright rips into his best role as Washington lawyer Bennett Holiday, doing everything in his power to help his boss (Christopher Plummer, superb) create a merger between two Texas oil corporations, one run by Jimmy Pope (the great Chris Cooper), whose main man, Danny Dalton, Tim Blake Nelson in a role that leaves teeth marks, puts Gordon Gekko's 'greed is good' speech to shame by glossing over the evils of corruption.

Gaghan is at the top of his game. His potent script is a remarkable blend of sharp words and images that sear the mind, like the sight of a Pakistani migrant worker, laid off by Connex after Prince Nasir's deal with China, being coerced into Islamic fundamentalism at a madrassa. Syrian can be difficult to follow, but it requires close attention, nay demands it. Sugar coating is not in Gaghan's DNA. Clooney, as Barnes is struggling to find his morals, while Wright, as Holiday, is fast letting go of his own. This is filmmaking that matters, the kind Hollywood tried to banish from the multiplexes.

In the same year, Clooney himself starred and directed the brilliant Good Night, and Good Luck, which stuck it to the complacent media culture with the riveting story of Edward R. Murrow's war of words and ethics with Senator Joseph McCarthy. No doubt about it, George Clooney was more than a Hollywood star: he was a provocateur force to be reckoned with. In the last decade, movies definitely needed more of that.