Syriana - spoilers

I was so ready to be blown away by this movie. Maybe my expectations were too high. I find it interesting that Gaghan's ability to generate tension in multiple storylines in Traffic failed him here. Where to start...First, I think this is an important movie, and I'm glad they made it. It's a movie that tries to tackle huge issues of global importance and tries to present them in a way that will force people to think, to ask questions about America's political and military role in the world as an importer of goods and resources and an exporter of political power. No one else in the world is capable, or even trying to build or tear down nations, and it's our duty as citizens to understand what this course of action could mean for us and the rest of the planet.

This issue is so important that I think Gaghan fell prey to a classic, even amateurish screenwriting mistake; he mistook what is "true" for what will make a "movie". As a result, the movie is lacking in dramatic tension and is overly expository as it serves stories that, IMO, add little or nothing to the film. The story of Matt Damon's energy trading expert probably comprises 20-25% of the film and is entirely incidental on every level. From plot (his son's accidental death leading to his relationship with a progressive Middle Eastern royal) to character (his seduction by the desire to play a role on the world stage) this story adds zero to the movie.

This by itself takes the movie from potentially great to only good. The story of the oil companies and the white shoe law firm that serves them also comes up short, though it works better, suffers from the same problems of too much exposition and a lack of dramatic tension. It isn't easy to take global stakes and make them personal, but that's what needed to happen fo this movie to be great, and it didn't.
Without a doubt, the best stories were Clooney's CIA agent, the reformer, and the Jihadists. Clooney's story contained tension and an internal moral struggle that was well done though there was, IMO, a big piece of his story, involving the epiphany which leads him to take action, which was left unexplained to the detriment of the movie. The story of the Jihadists may have been the best one, though it may have given the impression that all Jihadists are impoverished and exploited, which is certainly true of many, but not all.
So, a frustrating movie, to say the least, but one I'm glad to have seen and I hope it makes lots of money so that more people will be willing to take chances with films.
G