I would like to know how here have watched Syriana. Personally, I loved the movie and I thought it did a fair job of getting all the players involved in the trade and did a good job of explaining their motivations and their capabilities. I want to keep this thread from being too political and keep it away from D&D, so please keep this strictly to your commentaries of the movie and not about your personal views of the oil business.
LOVED IT, love the style, a great follow up to Traffic *Don't read if you haven't seen the movie* But if you were the CIA selling boobytrapped TOW missles to terrorists and intended on blowing them up, why would you sell them functional versions? It's not like they could take them apart before doing the deal. Exactly who was the old dude, orchestrating the younger prince, arranging for the CIA to blow up the older prince and why would Clooney head into the desert to warn the prince on his word when he knew "Beriut Rules" means all out war. Clooney knew the mission to Beruit was a set up to get him out of the way ( the CIA didn't count on him going to Hezbolah) so anything else the old CIA dude told him was probably a double cross? Maybe he was just willing to sacrifice his life to try to save the prince. I guess I know he was a high ranking, rouge CIA agent but dam, he pulled off a non-combatant assisnation from Langley? Everything else in the movie has the ring of believeablity but that I don't believe would/could happen.
Like I said I loved it, but you are right. Will definitely need to watch it a second time to understand everything.
I thought it was an excellent movie, however hard to keep up with. I also didn't understand why Clooney would go into the desert to save the other prince, but I do understand why U.S. killed the other prince. It had to do with him wanting to make an oil deal with China, and his brother wanting to make the oil deal with the U.S. The father could never stand up to America so he chose the son that would not create any friction. Also, just like Traffic, all the families in this movie were disfunctional, which is a movie in itself. I also thought it was interesting how they inserted the suicide bombers into the story, the bomb used to blow the American tanker was sold by an Amercian CIA agent. Makes you wonder why the CIA exists. The old guy's character is still a mystery to me, but if I were to guess, it would be a high ranking gov. official with great interests in the white house. Kinda reminds me of Harrold Simmons and the relations he has with the current Dubaya administration.
Great movie. I really enjoyed the plot and I really had no idea what was the plot until the end. I saw it at the Marq'e
Great! Another vehicle for George Clooney to advance his leftist agenda, and make money at the same time.
I saw it and thought it was OK. There was alot that had to be inferred from the movie, such as I believe that Bob (George Clooney's) character was actually trying to warn prince Nasir that he was being targetted over the Conex deal and possibly gain some measure of protection from the prince. I did think it was needless complicated like did we need to know that the Black lawyer had an alchoholic dad? Its an interesting movie and makes you think but I don't think it was anywhere near as good as Traffic To me it struck me as trying to condense a month's worth of episodes of Frontline into two hours.
The old guy was the lead named partner of the law firm that represented Connex. I think a better comparison would be James Baker, whose grandfather was the founding partner of Baker Botts, and who is Senior Counsel for the Carlyle Group. I thought the movie was great, but it needed a little more back story. I'm curious if you guys thought that Matt Damon's character worked for the CIA at the end.
i thought the movie was great... the other cia character clooney hooks up with in beirut...(the one who eventually rips out his fingernails) was this guy a CIA agent gone corrupt? what was his role
I think he was more like a mercenary that the CIA had used for assisnations in the past but since the US had left Beruit to Syria and Hezbollah, he had turned to the dark side.
Good movie, but as some have said too many twists and turns in the story without enough 'background' to make the viewer more aware of what/why something is happening, leaves you confused more than anything else. Still, overall a good movie. Capote is a very good one as well.
WARNING: SPOILERS AND D&D WORTHY COMMENTARY BELOW : Just got back from watching it. This movie is absolute garbage. Basically it’s what happens when you have people who are anti-oil and have never worked in the industry attempt to vilify the industry. Matt Damon’s character was a total joke. His recommendations were so incredibly obvious that they were absurd. Anyone in the industry would laugh him right out of the room if he actually presented that crap to an executive, much less a member of Middle East royalty. The oil executives’ barbecuing and hunting, even using President Bush’s favorite line of a guy being a ‘good man’. Everyone who was against American interests being killed. Just total demagoguery. It’s amazing how Hollywood can openly force this anti-America, anti-business crap on viewers. What’s sad is that 90% of the people who go see this movie don’t have the critical reasoning to determine that it is incredibly biased. The only good thing was that the movie itself was presented in a way that made it somewhat difficult to follow. If I was questioning who was who, then what do you think the dude in the row in front of me with his hat turned backwards was thinking? Ha! It’s likely not going to be a box office success because of that. Make no mistake about it, this movie Is intended to cast doubt on the energy industry by playing on the emotions of those who don’t understand the industry at all. They force feed you wild stories of corrupt lawyers, businessmen, CIA agents, etc. The ending of the movie even included a blatant stab at the safety of LNG terminals – the permitting of which is a hot topic on the west coast of the US and other places. Can you say, pure propaganda? Goebbels would be proud of the Hollywood liberals’ latest effort. A sampling of the more obvious attempts at slander and innuendo: Connex-Killen = ExxonMobil Killeen = City near Fort Hood (any anti-war hippie’s least favorite place – home of the 4th infantry division of the Army) Leland “Lee” Janus = Lee Raymond – CEO of Exxon Political leanings aside, the movie was poorly made and the writers did not do the proper research in creating this piece. Again, Matt Damon's character was so bad that it was a distraction to the movie. It lacked credibility and was way too over the top in its blatant portrayal of anything remotely connected to US interests being evil.
ok if you think hollywood is trying to impose this evil agenda, then don't waste your time watching it... No one really forced you
LNG terminals are actually fairly safe for the value it would bring... I even think I saw some actuators in the background during that scene (of course thats what I sell though!)
