Syriana (2005)
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 193
Fresh: 139 | Rotten: 54
Ambitious, complicated, intellectual, and demanding of its audience, Syriana is both a gripping geopolitical thriller and wake-up call to the complacent.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 48
Fresh: 41 | Rotten: 7
Ambitious, complicated, intellectual, and demanding of its audience, Syriana is both a gripping geopolitical thriller and wake-up call to the complacent.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 225,146
Movie Info
Oil drives greed in Oscar-winning Traffic screenwriter Stephen Gaghan's labyrinthine sophomore directorial effort that traces the corruption of the global oil industry from the backrooms of Washington, D.C., to the petroleum-rich fields of the Middle East. Based in part on the writings of former CIA case officer Robert Baer, Syriana combines multiple storylines to explore the complexities that befall a proposed merger between two U.S. oil giants. Reform-minded Gulf country prince Nasir
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Cast
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George Clooney
Bob Barnes -
Matt Damon
Bryan Woodman -
Jeffrey Wright
Bennett Holiday -
Chris Cooper
Jimmy Pope -
William Hurt
Stan Goff -
Tim Blake Nelson
Danny Dalton -
Amanda Peet
Julie Woodman -
Christopher Plummer
Dean Whiting -
Alexander Siddig
Prince Nasir Al-Suba... -
Mazhar Munir
Wasid Ahmed Khan -
Nicholas Reese Art
Riley Woodman -
Mark Strong
Mussawi -
Jayne Atkinson
CIA Division Chief -
David Clennon
Donald Farish III -
Robert Foxworth
Tommy Thompson -
Nicky Henson
Sydney Hewitt -
Nadim Sawalha
Emir Hamad Al-Subaai -
Jamey Sheridan
Terry George -
Fritz Michel
Security Guard -
Peter Gerety
Lee Janus -
Akbar Kurtha
Prince Meshal Al-Sub... -
Viola Davis
Marilyn Richards -
William C. Mitchell
Bennett Holiday Sr. -
Sonnell Dadral
Farooq -
Max Minghella
Robby Barnes -
Shahid Ahmed
Saleed Ahmed Khan -
Tom McCarthy
Fred Franks -
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Syriana Trailer & Photos
All Critics (197) | Top Critics (48) | Fresh (139) | Rotten (54) | DVD (30)
This is intelligent, committed, and politically provocative, though its narrative puzzle box may prompt you to throw up your hands and let ExxonMobil go on running the world.
Top CriticIts dark, dog-eat-dog vision of the world we live in may give you geopolitical nightmares.
Evidently, such matters of thematic coherence, so well explored by Gaghan in Traffic, were not as important to him this time around, and it's a mistake.
It's entirely possible that Gaghan just isn't an actor's director.
Syriana impresses, not because it is very moving, which it isn't, or because it is crystal clear, which it also isn't, but because it is so large, so encompassing, so seemingly privy to inside stuff.
Watch closely and listen carefully during Syriana because Stephen Gaghan's movie is that rarity: a thinking person's drama.
A skeleton of theme minus the meat of resonance
A film that treats its audience as adults, this is an extremely rewarding work that handsomely pays off the concentration required to watch it.
You didn't understand all of it? It went by too fast to take it all in? There was too much information to mentally digest? Yeah, well, that was kind of the point.
Probes a significant subject but treats its people as mere stick figures carrying exposition from place to place.
Preferring probing questions to pat solutions, the film drills deep in its exploration of the US's ventures, both economic and military, in the Middle East.
The most troublesome part of Syriana is that the movie is, in fact, so easy to believe.
Gaghan kapitulira pred holivudskim konvencijama te film zaklju%u010Duje spektakularnom, ali banalnom i krajnje neuvjerljivom zavr%u0161nicom
Politically-paranoid, if well-intentioned, this disjointed message movie doesn't really do much more than indict the usual suspects.
In addition to the performances there's a wealth of memorable detail.
This is neither realism nor tragedy. It's cynicism, which exposes itself most nakedly in Damon's addresses to the Arab characters, and in Gaghan's own portrayal of them.
Interesting and worth watching, despite the fact that complete comprehension of the film seems just beyond the reach of the viewer.
The disorientation is purely cosmetic.
[K]eeps you on a teeter-totter of emotion... it leaves you with a sense of falling that is entirely unsettling.
If there is any lesson the makers of Syriana want us to absorb, it is that we should trust no one where power and money are concerned.
Syriana really makes viewers work to try to understand the complexities involved in protecting (or resisting) U.S. interests in the Middle East.
No one-sentence synopsis is possible, but here's a stab: A bunch of people, played by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Christopher Plummer and others, stalk around looking serious and doing stuff.
Audience Reviews for Syriana
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
Movies Like Syriana
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- Mussawi: [Bob is tied to a chair with his hands on a table] Bob, your gonna give me the names of everyone who has taken money from you. [he pulls a fingernail from Bob's hand with a plier] Oh, that is disgusting.
- Robby Barnes: Jimmy, your not one of those Koran thumpers.
- Mussawi: My name is Mussawi. [he pulls another fingernail from Bob. He then throws water at Bob's face and begins punching him violently in the face] You fucking fuck, stupid fuck, what the fuck! This is a fucking war! Your a P.O.fucking W! Give me the fucking names! [Bob hits his head against the ground, still tied to the chair] Fuck it. [in Arabic] I'm cutting his fucking head off. [he grabs a knife and kneels down to bob's head] I'm gonna cut your head off Bob.
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- Jimmy Pope: Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why we win.
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- Bryan Woodman: But what do you need a financial advisor for? Twenty years ago you had the highest Gross National Product in the world, now you're tied with Albania. Your second largest export is secondhand goods, closely followed by dates which you're losing five cents a pound on... You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other's heads off and that's where you'll be in another hundred years, so on behalf of my firm I accept your offer.
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- Bob Barnes: I want you to take him from his hotel, drug him, put him in the front of a car, and run a truck into it at 50 mph.
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