I have to admit: I had low hopes for Syriana after a string of bad movies that I’d seen.  I’m happy to report however that I was positively surprised by this movie.  I was expecting lame moralizing of the kind that disappointed me about Lord of War, however this movie managed to make it’s way through without introducing cartoonish villains.  What it did have instead were complicated people with realistic motivations, spun together in a series of interconnecting narratives that made the film a pleasure to watch.

What really impressed me was that despite the well-known political leanings of show star George Clooney, the US government was portrayed not as a faceless villain who wants to destroy the world, but instead as a collection of individuals with different goals, who make actions in their own self-interest with non-evil motivations — even if the end result ends up being suboptimal.  It’s too easy to just fall back to the activist position and just make use of they as was done in Lord of War, but Syriana was happily not guilty of this offense.

With a complex plot like this that weaves multiple stories together, it’s pretty easy to be confused by what is going on where.  I credit excellent casting for making it pretty obvious which characters belonged where so even a dumb guy like me could easily remember which person belonged in each storyline.  Clooney and Damon, the show’s big name stars, both did good in their very different roles.  Neither of them was really stellar or standout, perhaps because this was really not the kind of movie that could provide the proper stage for that kind of thing.  While each of them could have been described as being the lead actor in the film, really they just played a part in their own narratives, two among many.

Definitely one to rent.