Syriana.

The studios plugged Syriana with the tag-line, "...from the makers of Traffic" & throughout the movie, you are constantly reminded of the similarities between the two: from the hand-held cameras to the color palets used in editing. The political plot-lines for both also follow a controversial subject, drug trafficing into the U.S. in Traffic, and here Stephen Gaghan explores the oil industry and it's ties to the U.S. Government & big business.

In the film, we see four main stories that all tie together in the end. Clooney brings it with one of his finest performances to date, as a CIA operative in the Middle East. The other stories revolve around Jeffrey Wright as a big-business lawyer, Matt Damon as a energy advisor & in the fourth story we see two Middle East youth caught up in their country's economic distress. (I must also note that Alexander Siddig delivers the best performance of the film as a Middle Eastern Prince).

One of my favorite podcasts, Cinecast, runs twice a week. The show is run by two regular guys our age, they thought the movie wasn't the masterpiece that Traffic was because it didn't have an ending that had any hope. Although, I think the film is very good to great, I would agree that Syriana is not a masterpiece, but for different reasons, namely the direction. It's not that Gaghan is a bad director. He does a good job here, but after you are done you feel that Soderbergh's direction in Traffic is what sets that movie apart from this film.

All that said, I believe Syriana is a movie that succeeds in bringing you into the big business geopolitical world of the oil business. And I do think that there is hope in the story, since each of the main characters tries to do the right thing throughout, with varied success (I won't go any further, as I don't want to give anything away).

One quick sidenote, surprisingly, Vice President Dick Cheney said that Syriana was "the best film I've seen in years." Cheney, as you may know, was CEO of the oil services company Haliburton. I think he said that as a ploy to throw people off from his past connections to the oil industry, but it's interesting nonetheless. ***1/2