Fresh
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.
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Overview
The Middle Eastern oil industry is the backdrop of this tense drama, which weaves together numerous story lines. Bennett Holiday is an American lawyer in charge of facilitating a dubious merger of oil companies, while Bryan Woodman, a Switzerland-based energy analyst, experiences both personal tragedy and opportunity during a visit with Arabian royalty. Meanwhile, veteran CIA agent Bob Barnes uncovers an assassination plot with unsettling origins.
Director and cast
- Stephen Gaghan Director
- George Clooney as Bob Barnes
- Matt Damon as Bryan Woodman
- Jeffrey Wright as Bennett Holiday
- Chris Cooper as Jimmy Pope
- Amanda Peet as Julie Woodman
- William Hurt as Stan
- Christopher Plummer as Dean Whiting
- Alexander Siddig as Prince Nasir Al-Subaai
- Kayvan Novak as Arash
- Amr Waked as Mohammed Sheik Agiza
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
73%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Its dark, dog-eat-dog vision of the world we live in may give you geopolitical nightmares.
David Ansen, Newsweek
Rotten
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.
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
Rotten
It's entirely possible that Gaghan just isn't an actor's director.
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
Fresh
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.
Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic
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