Last night, two of my friends and I went to the movies. We went to see "Syriana." Here is the synopsis:
From writer/director Stephen Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Academy Award for 'Traffic,' comes 'Syriana,' a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film's multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power. As a career CIA operative (George Clooney) begins to uncover the disturbing truth about the work he has devoted his life to, an up-and-coming oil broker (Matt Damon) faces an unimaginable family tragedy and finds redemption in his partnership with an idealistic Gulf prince (Alexander Siddig). A corporate lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) faces a moral dilemma as he finesses the questionable merger of two powerful U.S. oil companies, while across the globe, a disenfranchised Pakistani teenager (Mazhar Munir) falls prey to the recruiting efforts of a charismatic cleric. Each plays their small part in the vast and complex system that powers the industry, unaware of the explosive impact their lives will have upon the world.This movie was incredible and I loved it for all the wrong reasons.
First, the board room and back room scenes with the oil companies are awesome. As someone who has been there, the way the characters act is pretty accurate too. A lot of smart, white shirted white guys with a good ol boy mentality who are all about making money. I was impressed that they really seemed to nail that aspect.
The actual cinematic scheme and camera work was really inspired, too. Very grainy and raw like the aforementioned "Traffic."
I loved that the lawyer for the merger was a jerk to his drunk dad. That was refreshing. I get tired of the "heart of gold" storylines.
Matt Damon was a really good at being a jerk in the film. His wife, Amanda Peet, was the perfect "soccer mom."
But the performances isn't what had me laughing when everyone else sat in stunned silence, it was how incredibly skewed the liberal slant of the movie was. The running theme of the whole film was "It's the USA and Big oil's fault." In fact, if they would have just put it in the lower right hand corner like they do the titles of videos on MTV2 it would have been more subtle. Let me give a few examples:
George Clooney, the CIA agent, goes back to Beirut where he meets with a reasonable Hezbollah leader to explain that he is there to do a job but not against them. Hezbollah is fine with that. Then another Arabic guy that he used to deal with turns on him. They capture him and tie him to a chair, pull out his fingernails, beat him and are about to kill him by cutting his head off when Hezbollah steps in to save him. Mind you, it was his fault that he was going to have his head cut off because he wanted to kill the Iranian prince.
Iran, by the way, is always represented as a noble country, that is lead by a weak older Emir who has been corrupted by the American oil companies. His eldest son, is the one that wants a free democratic Iran, but the US has him killed because he won't give the US favorable oil trade over the Chinese.
The whole back line of the disenfranchised Pakistani teenager was great because it was never anyone's fault that he was going to be deported except the US oil company. Then when he goes to the Arabic center to get the free food and training in Arabic, instead of Farsi, he get drafted into being a suicide bomber. All this is America's fault because he lost his job. They never mentioned the 2000 other guys that lost their job and didn't blow stuff up. But that one kid, that was our fault.
Of course, none of this wouldn't be happening, if there wasn't a dirty merger between two super huge oil companies bribing and corrupting away at the system.
But the best part of the movie was this:
In the climatic scene of the movie, as George Clooney, who has seen the error of his ways, tries to warn the noble, freedom loving prince about the impeding assassination attempt on his life but the crowd also watches the CIA control room where they launch a hellfire rocket via a drone to blow them all to hell.BOOOM.
An older lady behind me said in the most sarcastically dripping tone I have ever heard , "Well, hurrah for our side."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. It wasn't one of those hidden laughs either and it wasn't on purpose. It was a belly laugh. The fact it was obnoxious and ironic made it that much more funny. I know that a whole theatre of people were drinking the Kool Aide right then , but I couldn't help it. I'm sure some pissed off movie goers got in their car that night talking about "what was that guys deal?"
When this film comes out on DVD I'm going to buy it because it made me proud to be in oil and gas. It also shows that Hollywood does live in a fairy tail world.
