Ralph's Movie Reviews: SYRIANA

Friday, December 23, 2005

SYRIANA

Thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
George Clooney: Bob Barnes veteran CIA agent in Tehran, Iran
Alexander Sidding: Prince Nasir, reform minded heir apparent to the Emir
Akbar Kurtha: Prince Meshal, Nasir’s younger brother, a pampered playboy
Matt Damon: Bryan Woodman, energy analyst living in Geneva
Amanda Peet: his wife Julie
Christopher Plummer: Dean Whiting, head of the law firm Sloan Whiting
Mazhar Munir: Wasim Ahmed Khan, young migrant worker employed by Connex
Shahid Ahmed: Wasim's father Saleem Ahmed Khan
Tom McCarthy: Fred Franks, Bob Barnes’ CIA boss
Viola Davis: Marilyn Richards, Deputy National Security Advisor
Jeffrey Wright: Bennett Holliday, lawyer with Sloan Whiting
Nicky Henson: Sydney Hewitt, Connex’s Washington counsel
Chris Cooper: Jimmy Pope, President of Killen
Tim Blake Nelson: Danny Dalton, Texas oilman
Peter Gerety: Lee Janus, Connex Chairman
David Clennon: Assistant Attorney General Donald Farish III
William Hurt: Stan Goff, retired CIA agent and longtime associate of Bob Barnes
(and there are 66 more credited cast members!)

Killen: small Texas oil company with valuable drilling rights in Kazakastan
Connex: large Texas oil company wanting to merge with Killen
CLI: Committee to Liberate Iran

REVIEW
Somewhere in all this confusion, there is an important message (we are running out of oil) but the story is so convoluted and complex that this gets lost in the telling.

Two things would make the movie intelligible: fewer people in it (there are over 70 speaking roles according to the official website) so you don’t have to keep track of so many characters and some straightforward explanations from time to time of what is going on. Otherwise we are left to our own resources to figure it out ourselves. That is a daunting task.

CLASSIFICATION

for brief head-turning violence and some language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
The clock in the control room shows the time to be 23:22 when the missile is launched and is in flight only a couple of minutes. But upon impact the controller announces “Target eliminated at …. (pause while he looks up at the clock)… 23:44”

P.S.
Syriana: a geopolitical term created by the CIA referring to the Middle East hot spots that have proved so volatile to U.S. security.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.