Syriana (2005)

Director: Stephen Gaghan

Cast: Kayvan Novak as Arash, George Clooney as Bob Barnes, Amr Waked as Mohammed Sheik Agiza, Christopher Plummer as Dean Whiting, Jeffrey Wright as Bennett Holiday, Chris Cooper as Jimmy Pope, Robert Foxworth as Tommy Barton, Nicky Henson as Sydney Hewitt, Nicholas Art as Riley Woodman, Matt Damon as Bryan Woodman, Amanda Peet as Julie Woodman, Steven Hinkle as Max Woodman, Daisy Tormé as Rebecca, Peter Gerety as Leland "Lee" Janus, Richard Lintern as Bryan's Boss

Initially I wanted to compare it with Traffic, same style and
interwoven story lines, but the film itself stopped me from doing so.
Thank you. Comparing films can so difficult, you know, the old apples
v. oranges thing. This film stands on its own without the comparison or
the similarities to Traffic.

Just before I went to the movie theatre, I saw an interview with Steve
Gaghan the director on the Charlie Rose Show, and probably this helped
me to fit most of the pieces together. The scene where Bob (Clooney) is
taken to visit Hezbollah leaders, is based on the exact experience the
director had when researching the story. He said that most of the film
was based on his or Bob's actual experiences.

So what do we have....Oil, big oil, oil executives, oil analysts, oil
geography, oil politics, big time oil power brokers, CIA, Islamic
terrorists, Middle East culture....It's all there. And Steve Gaghan
does a very good job in bringing it all together. His directorial
debut. Very good acting all round, maybe the oldest boy and his mother
Amanda Peet stand out.

I walked out of the theatre in an emotional daze, if that's possible. I
will see this film again.

My coda.... What a rotten, ugly barrel of oil.