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'Syriana': Dark, slick tale about oil

Encouraged by an Oscar for his screenplay of Traffic, the diffuse saga of the unwinnable war on drugs, writer-director Stephen Gaghan constructs a similar mosaic puzzle of a film in Syriana, a would-be expose of the global oil industry.

But if Traffic was a crash course in the workings of our government, Syriana is the graduate program. It is refreshing — and a bit daunting — to encounter a mainstream movie that not only does not talk down to its audience, but challenges us to keep up with it at every turn.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'Syriana' B- The verdict: A vast panoramic portrait of the global oil conspiracy, but too complex for its own good. Director: Stephen Gaghan Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Amanda Peet, Chris Cooper, Tim Blake Nelson Run time: 123 minutes Release date: Nov. 23, 2005 Rating: R for violence and language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Syriana'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

For starters, as the film's press notes proudly mention, there are more than 70 speaking roles in Syriana, many of them brief but important cogs in the plot's machinery. Chances are your brain will reach an overload state long before all the characters have been introduced. Relax, do not get frustrated, there are rewards for those who open up their minds and hang in there, but it is also true that Gaghan would have communicated more if he had whittled away many of his subplots and background tangents.

As with Traffic, there is no single main character in Syriana It not only takes a panoramic approach to the narrative, but skips around the globe — from New York to Washington to London to Bahrain to Dubai to Damascus — at a disorienting pace.

The closest the film comes to a central character is probably Bob Barnes (George Clooney), a grizzled, bearded, paunchy veteran CIA agent, about to be benched with a desk job. First, though, he is sent on one last field assignment, to assassinate the son of aging oil-rich emir. Of course, things go wrong, leading to Barnes' capture and torture, a finger nail-pulling sequence that is right up there for cinematic pain with Laurence Olivier's dental drilling in Marathon Man.

Coming close to Clooney in prominence is Matt Damon as Bryan Woodman, an energy analyst and media talking head based in Geneva, whose son is killed in a freak swimming pool accident at a party, which Bryan manages to turn into a financial windfall with the emir's son. And then there is buttoned-down, bespectacled Washington lawyer Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) who is shepherding a merger between two major oil companies through the land mines of legislative approval. In the world of Gaghan's Syriana, the deal benefits only corporate and governmental interests.

With this large canvas storytelling strategy, it is difficult for any of the performers to make much of an impression, though Clooney seems liberated by his adding on weight and moving beyond matinee idol expectations. Christopher Plummer stands out as the venal head of Holiday's law firm. And Amanda Peet gets a few opportunities to chew on a role of substance, however briefly, as Damon's disapproving wife.

In its pessimism about corporate interests, Syriana is a close cousin of The Constant Gardener, a film that tells as complex a story with substantially more clarity. You may not follow every detail of Syriana — I certainly did not — but that should not stop you from rolling up your sleeves and wading in.