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Syriana
Syriana is a heavy political thriller with plenty of talent and very keen critical appraise. Pity it's as boring as the Littlewoods catalogue.
Syriana will only appeal to a relatively small section of the population. Consider it as Date Movie in negative and you won't be far wrong. It's undoubtedly a very good movie - but I don't rate a movie's quality, I rate how much I think you'll enjoy it. And unless you follow world politics, you won't. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: - but a clear if you're into this kind of thing. Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: - there's one gruesome torture scene and a couple of explosions, the rest is talkie talkie talkie. To enjoy this film you should be: interested by politics.
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Your commentsThe comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!
Oh dear - Gaghan may have succeeded with Traffic, but he fails here. Sterotypical badies, ideological goodies and unnecessary characters such as Chris Cooper's alcoholic father - all thrown into the pot and stirred with a hand held camera. Add in a bunch of Brits such as Mark Strong and Nicky Henson with dodgy yank accents and round off with the unanswered question of what George Clooney was up to in that Shogun offroader at the end of the film.
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I know, I know, I'm a critic, I'm supposed to like this kind of thing. However, if you've only read the mainstream press
reviews then you'll be under the impression that this is a movie for everyone that happens to be about politics. It's not.
It's only for people who are interested in politics and can read the business section of the newspaper without nodding off.
For those people, there is a huge amount to recommend in Syriana, as there is a deep and complex plot with many intriguing
threads to follow and a series of excellent performances from world class actors. I, however, watched the first 20 minutes
and suddenly realised I didn't have a clue who any of the characters were and what was going on. This is, I admit, my own
fault. The movie started quickly and I wasn't paying enough attention - where you would normally expect to be able to
settle in at your own pace, Syriana gets cracking from the opening scene and if you don't listen carefully you'll be
left behind.
The density of the plot is a natural consequence of being a political book converted to a movie, and it's a problem.
While obviously fictitious movies such as
