Hey folks, Harry here with one of the possible heavy hitters come Award season this year. Stephen Gaghan's SYRIANA. The film is due out in mid-September here in the States - but October just about everywhere else, so this is screening with 2 1/2 months to tighten and work on and nail this incredibly powerful material. Seems the key issue at this point has to do with the pacing. With this being a rough cut with a temp track - a lot of that gets fixed in the nipping and tucking part of the film honing process - but... a good score and soundtrack can change all of that. From the sounds of this review - there's a really great movie here, just needing to be fine-tuned. This and JARHEAD are two of the films coming this Fall that I just can not wait to see. Here ya go...
hey harry,
don't know if you can use this or not - but i just got
back from a test screening at the grove in LA of the
upcoming warner bros. production of "syriana" starring
george clooney, matt damon, jeffrey wright, amanda
peet, william hurt, christopher plummer (who gets the
film's biggest, and only, laugh with one of his
lines), etc., etc., etc. it's written-directed by
stephen gaghan of "traffic" fame and produced by
clooney and steven soderbergh, among others.
beautifully shot by robert elswit, with a temp score
(and music credit) by alexandre desplat, who composed
one of my favorite scores of last year, for the
underrated nicole kidman film, "birth" (much of that
score was recycled here as a temp track).
without going too much into the convoluted plot, for
it packs a few really shocking suprises that made the
audience audibly gasp (i even heard one woman behind
me whimpering after one of the scenes!), "syriana" is
essentially "traffic" with oil substituting drugs,
beirut substituting mexico, and clooney subbing in for
del toro. the major problem with the film is that
stephen gaghan is not steven soderbergh - the film is
neither as tautly directed, economic, or emotionally
charged as soderbergh's film. instead, "syriana" is
essentially a film about a very interesting and
relevant topic that plays like a second-rate "traffic"
imitation. that's not to say that there aren't good,
even great, things about this film - it's just that,
as of now, the flaws overshadow them.
let me get the bad out of the way first so maybe i can
end this review on a positive note. really, the major
issue with the film right now is it's pace. gaghan
executes his script with an unforced naturalism that
is both incredibly refreshing and, occasionally at the
same time, fairly frustrating. i don't know if i'm
just particularly slow on the uptake (judging from the
walk-outs throughout the screening, i would suspect
not...) or what, but it's difficult to fully grasp the
agendas of the various characters until rather late in
the game. as the film is intended for a mainstream
audience, that's dangerous ground to walk on - not
having a full understanding of the characters
precludes one's emotional investment in the material
and is the single greatest hurdle this film is going
to have to overcome. it's a lot of talk in drab
offices, hotel rooms, and the like - and it all comes
at you like exposition you've got to hurry to keep up
with. but what's the point if you don't care about
the characters or fully understand who they are?
matters are exacerbated by the fact that there are so
many characters and locales that there's no real
emotional center to the film. naturally, one would
think going into the film that clooney is going to
carry the brunt of the story on his shoulders; that he
alone is going to be the eyes and ears of the audience
through which we will experience the drama. that
statement couldn't be more wrong. clooney was, for my
money, the least interesting character in the film.
he plays everything low key, but he's still clooney -
only fat (he gained something like 35 pounds for the
role or so...). that's not to say he doesn't do good
work - he's very believable - in my eyes, he just had
the least interesting character (although he is in two
of the most shocking and memorable scenes). i would
have been fine with that had there been another chief
character to take his place and guide us through the
story. unfortunately, that wasn't the case...
what we do get, however, is a fine assortment of
actors giving uniformly outstanding performances.
this is incredibly nuanced, incredibly subtle acting
at its finest. amanda peet has a small but memorable
role as matt damon's wife - despite the fact she has
so little screen time, she makes the most of it and
delivers a low key (keeping wiith the tone of the
film) but affecting performance as a woman struck by
tragedy. matt damon plays her husband, a man who uses
that tragedy for profit, becoming the chief financial
advisor to a middle eastern prince (although i cannot
remember the actor's name, he too was outstanding in
his role). damon's work here is as good as i've come
to expect from him. i really do feel that he may be
one of the finest actors of his generation, and
certainly one of the smartest. with the exception of
that farrelly brothers movie he did about the twins,
every part he has ever taken has been a good one.
jeffrey wright's story was perhaps my favorite of the
film. he plays the lawyer assigned to investigate the
merger between two oil companies. his story leads to
one of the finest moments in the film as he delivers
an angry, impassioned tirade against his alcoholic
father.
"syriana" also packs one hell of an ending. it's
utterly shocking and surprisingly emotional given how
cold and austere much of the previous film is. i'll
just leave it at that.
so what can be done to improve the film, which has so
many strengths one would hope it to be salvageable?
for one, paring down the 2 1/2 hour running time would
be a good place to start. from somewhere, i recall
bob towne using the term "shoe leather" to describe
the portions of scenes in which nothing of consequence
is happening; sort of the "filler" of the scene, if
you will. gaghan shows a real flair for directing
"shoe leather." there's one scene in which jeffrey
wright's character goes running... it feels like for a
good two minutes. and so we watch him go running, and
there's nice score and some jump cuts and some cool
michael mann-type shots... and i remember thinking,
"wow, that's a really cool shot they set up. too bad
it's for something totally inconsequential." there's
also tons of 2nd unit footage of the various
locales... all very nice stuff for setting tone and
mood, but after awhile you just want to cut to the
chase, y'know?
i don't know if some judicious editing is going to
solve all the movie's problems... it feels like
perhaps there may need to be some reshoots to help
clarify characters and their agendas, just so that the
audience is on-board for what ensues, instead of
scrambling to try to understand everything. this
movie has a hell of a lot of production value, so i'm
sure it wasn't cheap. maybe giving gaghan or his
buddy soderbergh a cool million to go back and fix
some things would be in the wb's best interest, as the
only real hope for this film is if it is critically
embraced. this is most certainly not the type of film
a general audience would go see... remember "the
insider" (a pretty great film, in my eyes), and how it
took the academy awards campaign and a subsequent
re-release for it to finally do some (marginal)
business? i feel like "syriana" falls into that same
category, so the execs better pray for some
outstanding reviews to come their way when this is
released...
anyway, this review is probably too long and i'd
better wrap things up. i sincerely wish the
filmmakers the best whipping this into shape in time
for release... it's a worthy film about a very
important issue that i hope can find an audience.
gaghan's just got to throw them (the audience) a bone
to help them out, y'know? and the whole cast deserves
a big shout-out (and gaghan, too, for directing them)
for giving such great performances.
peace out.
"morvern"
