Syriana

Note: I started writing this review earlier this week and never was inspired to finish. That should tell you something about how I feel about the film.

I should start off with saying that I enjoyed watching the film, that is, I didn't cringe, I was rapt with attention, and interested in the characters. I also liked all the locations and enjoyed watching the movement back and forth between DC, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Beruit. I don't know where they shot everything, but it was fun to see the landscapes.

And let that be my segway to pointing out the flaws of the film...

The most bullying an assole thing I can say is that this was a poor-man's Michael Mann film, or even a Michael Mann rip off. The Insider was much better.

I also felt this was supposed to be an intelligent film, and it was, if the extent of understanding about international affairs is reading the New York Times. They cited the 1952 Iranian election as a "home grown" democratic movement, implying of course, the US-engineered coup that led to the Shah and then, 30 years later, the Ayatollah's. These are fair connections to make if you a) want to ignore the cold war and b) ignore the fact that the Iranian government seized British oil company property and c) the coup was a British design for retribution for seizing a British company which Truman would not support, and Eisenhower eventually did.

But enough....please be aware I will ruin the plot....which is basically five or so overlapping stories.

The story that bugged me the most was the one of the to become suicide bomber. The story is that he is a Pakistani immigrant laborer who gets laid off from an oil company after a merger, cannot find work, and falls under the spell of a radical Islamic preacher. Convenient, and how Americans would often like to view suicide bombers, as typically unemployed, poor young men without prospects. It makes sense to us - can't find a job, so he finds purpose somewhere else - and actually is relying on the old Marxist critique of capitalism, that class distinctions are what drive division and history. The problem is, and this doesn't bug me in some films, but it did in this one, is that this scenario is highly inaccurate. Most suicide bombers are not poor immigrant laborers.

I had other things to say, but have lost the energy.

But overall, to me, this is a helpless vision of the world, and is the best example of why I don't think the American Left has anything useful to say about American foreign policy other than let's blame Christopher Plummer's brandy drinking ass. And you wonder why Democrats lose elections?

We look at George Bush and scoff - how can he possibly be our president. We can look no further than to watch Syriana and ask yourself - whose vision would you vote for - the one articulated by Gaghan in Syriana or the one expressed by GW in his speech to the naval academy a couple weeks ago. It doesn't take a genuis.