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.
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03/30/09
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Syriana (2005)
86
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:42
Fresh:36
Rotten:6
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: Ambitious, complicated, intellectual, and demanding of its audience, Syriana is both a gripping geopolitical thriller and wake-up call to the complacent.
Runtime: 2 hrs 8 mins
Genre: Thriller, True Story, Theatrical Release, CIA
Theatrical Release:Nov 23, 2005 Limited
Box Office: $50,767,634
Synopsis: Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for best screenplay for TRAFFIC, makes his directorial debut with SYRIANA, an espionage thriller set in the Middle East. George Clooney stars as Bob Barnes, a... [More]
Starring: George Clooney, Amanda Peet, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright
Director: Stephen Gaghan
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Reviews for Syriana
Top CriticIts dark, dog-eat-dog vision of the world we live in may give you geopolitical nightmares.
11/01/07
Top CriticIt's entirely possible that Gaghan just isn't an actor's director.
10/07/06
Top CriticSyriana 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.
01/03/06
Top CriticIt's hard to get passionately swept away by a movie when you're struggling continually to figure out who's doing what to whom and why.
12/09/05
Top CriticSyriana is an ambitious edifice, built with conviction and skill. But I'm not sure I understand it, and I'm not sure I care.
12/09/05
Top CriticA purposely jagged and harsh news story of a film, Syriana attempts to take on the powers that run the world and for the most part it succeeds.
12/09/05
Top CriticIt forces you to intently watch and listen and ask questions, something that in the past six years has been skillfully portrayed as an unpatriotic response to an increasingly complex international scenario.
12/09/05
Top Critic[Syriana] has what lots of great thrillers have, a sense that it knows things we don't, that even the most skeptical of us may be a little naive about the ways of the world.
12/09/05
Top CriticSyriana is a fascinating movie -- and a substantive and thought-provoking one -- but it does not necessarily attain greatness.
12/09/05
Top CriticIntelligent, political, incensed, timely, and appropriately cynical.
12/09/05
Top CriticAs he did in Traffic, Gaghan intertwines his disparate subplots with impeccable pacing -- his screenplay is a model of how to arrange scenes so that each one ends leaving you wanting to know more.
12/09/05
Top CriticYour enjoyment of this movie will be in direct proportion to your patience. If you can stand not knowing everything right now and wait for the story's threads to weave into a rug, Syriana makes for an engaging time.
12/08/05
Top CriticMr. Gaghan doesn't insult our intelligence, but he demands our attention. If you're up to those demands, you'll be rewarded.
12/08/05
Top CriticSyriana is an endlessly fascinating movie about oil and money, America and China, traders and spies, the Gulf States and Texas, reform and revenge, bribery and betrayal.
12/08/05
Top CriticUntangle the Gordian knot at the heart of Syriana and you find a riveting drama of succession.
12/08/05
Top CriticWhat's so powerful about the film is the rich stories it tells and how it leads them like so many human tributaries to one black, bubbling source.
12/08/05
Top CriticSyriana is a caustic and cynical political thriller with a plot that occasionally confuses but a message that leaves no room for misinterpretation.
12/08/05
Top CriticYou keep straining to understand the bits and pieces of information that you can make out, but it still adds up to a lot less than the sum of its parts.
12/08/05
Top CriticThe film's weary, politically wary vibe sticks with you.
12/08/05
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