I believe that it was during last summer’s press blitz for “Star Wars: Episode III” that George Lucas said in an interview that if you’re going to do politics in movies, better to do it as allegory, for the minute you go literal, you alienate the very minds you’re out to enlighten. Although writer/director Stephen Gaghan’s “Syriana” is a narrative step removed from “Fahrenheit 9/11”, the source of Lucas’ pronouncement, it still falls into the trap of dishing up its real-world, polarizing agenda stripped down to match the harsh realities of the world today. In this case, it’s all about the United States’ over-reliance on foreign oil, and the morally corrupt places that situation has taken the country. Gaghan’s obvious passion for his topic shows that he wishes he were doing what Lucas was denouncing, but he doesn’t quite hit that level, either. Although taut, immediate, and usually compelling, the makers of “Syriana” don’t bother to explain enough, thus leaving the average audience member feeling like a hopelessly befuddled student unable to follow the lecture of a tenured professor who understands his topic so well, he can no longer communicate it. The result is an obtuse and upset depiction that, like Gaghan’s previous writing collaboration, the superior and award-winning “Traffic”, leans heavily on the seemingly unconnected narrative threads of several characters spread out over numerous countries and ideologies to tell its tale. The threads come together, sort of, in a sense that’s not quite “Magnolia” and not quite “Pulp Fiction”. If anything, the political message, while still managing to communicate urgency and vitality, is left ever so slightly, inadvertently shoved aside by this overly convoluted approach. I suspect that the depth and scope of the topic, not to mention its unfamiliarity to many, prevents the storytelling formula that worked so well on “Traffic”, that earned Gaghan an Oscar, from working here.
Despite its bold stance against big money-grubbing corporations and their unethical ways, “Syriana” was bankrolled and distributed by Warner Brothers (!). While I understand the filmmaker’s need to get funding however they can to get the picture made, and concede the fact that WB is not in the oil business, the perception of hypocrisy, whether justified or not, is inescapable. Perhaps the fact that WB funded it makes the corporation all the bolder. If anything, this film feels tailor-made as a future entry in one of the studio’s upcoming “Controversial Classics” DVD box sets, home of other political hot-button films such as “All The President’s Men”. “Syriana” strikes a lot of similar chords as that film does, in that it’s built on clandestine meetings, corruption in high places, deadly serious hush-hush conversations, all the while never flinching from its purpose. It misses the mark by being too complicated, and perhaps too advanced for the common schmoe that the filmmakers want to affect. So, “Syriana”, despite its best intentions, more or less fails as a political exercise. Maybe that’s something that would change with subsequent viewings and extra-curricular trips to oil-scandal web sites and “The Economist”, but none of that should have to be necessary.
On the plus side, “Syriana” has several compelling characters, each interesting in his or her own way, - even if we don’t always follow what they’re doing or saying. Most visible among the cast is George Clooney as a CIA agent who is out for some real answers. For some reason, Clooney gained a bit of weight for this role, and it’s impossible to say why. The fat beard he sports, however, makes sense, as he operates in the Middle East, selling weapons to potential terrorists on behalf of the U.S. of A. Upon his being caught and tortured in what is the absolute most memorable scene of the film (look for the squeamish to bolt from the theater at this point), his character begins to nose around and ask some big questions. William Hurt shows up as the informant, and is as compelling as always – even if we don’t know or understand the exact burden of his soul. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, Matt Damon plays an energy analyst who suffers a family tragedy while on a business trip to Spain. Amanda Peet has the thankless role of the grieving wife, and both are sufficient in their parts. Back in the states, Chris Cooper is a loose cannon Texas Oil Man, and Christopher Plummer is the token evil old white guy in a suit (there’s always one of those in these movies). Finally, Jeffery Wright stands out as another important figure in this very tangled web of international intrigue. Well acted all the while, one cannot blame the cast for any of the storytelling shortcomings.
This being Gaghan’s big time directorial debut, aside from 2002’s little-seen Katie Holmes thriller “Abandon”, it’s important to note that his visual style nearly mirrors that of “Traffic” director Steven Soderbergh, sans the revolving film stocks. (Soderbergh is credited here as a producer, along with Clooney.) The abrupt straight cuts and hand-held camera intensity are mostly of the style of the interesting but rarely seen Soderbergh/Clooney HBO series “K Street”. Obviously the three men have a shared interest in politics, as well as the unrestful immediacy of the best social thrillers of thirty-plus years ago. It will be interesting to see how and what Gaghan directs in the future.
Despite being a prestige release, I really don’t know who will be drawn into “Syriana” other than radical left-wingers obsessed with the state of foreign oil in the U.S. Even if what it says, or is trying to say is true, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s just too darn muddled for those already not in the know. Is this oil business a vital and important topic that I should see fit to educate myself on outside of seeing a movie about it? Sure, I’ll grant that. But at the same time, it is the responsibility of the filmmaker to tell his story in such a way as to communicate his desired point. If you’re doing an oil corruption exposé, and it is your goal to educate the world on this problem you feel passionately about, you have to make it accessible. There are a lot of compelling scenes and characters in “Syriana”, but it doesn’t quite have it where it counts. Getting back to the Lucas quote, there’s something to be said for not being quite so direct as to alienate the mainstream in cases like this. A film that harshly indicts the country that made it while also sympathetically portraying a terrorist suicide bomber is going to be a hard sell any way you slice it. I’m not saying that Gaghan should’ve set the whole thing in space with droids and Jedi battling it out over a “trade dispute” (that was another movie that didn’t quite go over so well in the long run, either), but perhaps next time he sees fit to tackle a big social or political problem on screen, he should take a step back and look at the situation from the outside. Because as it stands now, “Syriana”, while compelling, is about as clear as the oil it’s obsessed with.
- Jim Tudor