The Incrediblly Scary World of Oil

Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today.
-Ghandi

The new film Syriana is a frustrating film. It seems deliberately so. It is frustrating in that if even half the things suggested in the film are true (and I wouldn't doubt that they aren't), then the US is neck deep in so much sludge that not even prudent and pragmatic policy can pull us out. Written by Stephen Gaghan the scribe of Traffic (2000) and also with him in the director's chair. It follows a very similar formula to Traffic as we follow multiple characters on all sides of an issue.

In fact the film is a little too fractured. I don't think that the film becomes confusing as it switches back and forth between the plot lines but it takes us away from each character at times and in the end one gets no satisfactory character arc. This is made all the more frustrating by little bits of side story including a man's alcoholic father and the son of a CIA operative. I found myself more interested in what those scenes alluded to than some parts of the story. Those elements aside the point of a film like this is a message. And with Gaghan it seems to be a controversial one.

In Traffic, he tackled the US drug policy and all its aspects from the top to the bottom. In Syriana, the oil business gets the same treatment. In so far as it is just a retread of Traffic replacing drugs with oil, it isn't very satisfying. On one side is that it is hardly even handed, because how can you make your point if you actually show the positive arguments of your opposition.

All we are allowed to see are the greedy businessmen, the power hungry political leaders and the terrorists created by policy. A rant by Tim Blake Nelson's character Daniel Dalton sums up Gaghan's feelings about what the government is doing. The character quotes Milton Friedman, not suprising since Friedman also advocated legalizing drugs, which Gaghan seems to favor as well.

Syriana was well performed although at times stylistically frustrating. Its message is certainly confronational and thought provoking and for that reason is worth seeing. It isn't perfectly constructed and in terms of story I can't say it was very good, but it stayed on its message which seems to have been the only point it really wants to make