If you like a movie that doesn't talk down to the audience and isn't afraid to push forward with touchy issues, this is going to be your cup of tea. However, viewers beware: the first hour is going to require some careful attention to seemingly unimportant details, and whatever one misses early-on is going to compromise overall comprehension of the plot later in the movie. That is simultaneously the mechanism for Syriana's greatest cinematic achievement and the deepest failing of the film. The earlier one figures out who the players are and what's motivating them, the more engrossing the storyline will be as it unfolds.
Each scene is meticulously presented and follows reasonably from the preceding material, but many of the characters and themes are introduced exactly once. From then on, you're on your own, and if you missed something because you were reaching for the popcorn, well, you're going to be leaving the theater with some unanswered questions. This potential difficulty is exacerbated by the rapid-fire context switches that occur, which can zoom to the opposite side of the planet with a completely different set of characters operating on events in a way which may seem, at most, tangentially connected to the original topic.
To understand the intricacies of the plot, one must be prepared to discard the usual notions of spoon-fed character development through repetition, and accept the job of piecing together, puzzle-like, the backgrounds and motivations from scenes as they occur. The reward for those who successfully undertake this mission is a sense of how people completely separated in social role, geography, ethics, economic standing, and compelling interests may be affected or outright intertwined by shared events and global phenomenon. This interconnectedness occurs whether the characters are aware of it or not, and whether or not they have any control over their circumstances, much as it does in real life. Each person's kindnesses or cruelties can have a far-reaching impact, outside the vision of the initiator, and no film I've seen has been as successful in illustrating this point as Syriana.
All the aforementioned tangents do add together, their vector sum forming a clear direction of plot motion in which seemingly minor events are part of a larger web of causality. In order to establish this web in the finite allotted time, Syriana sacrifices some of the developmental conveniences to which many audience members are accustomed in movies for a detailed, densely-filled, far-reaching script. What one stands to gain from this movie will be proportional to the effort one invests in understanding it. When Syriana becomes available as a DVD, there will be greater potential to mitigate the negative opinions of some who didn't "get it" on the first pass but are open-minded enough to give the film a second viewing at a cheaper price.
Each scene is meticulously presented and follows reasonably from the preceding material, but many of the characters and themes are introduced exactly once. From then on, you're on your own, and if you missed something because you were reaching for the popcorn, well, you're going to be leaving the theater with some unanswered questions. This potential difficulty is exacerbated by the rapid-fire context switches that occur, which can zoom to the opposite side of the planet with a completely different set of characters operating on events in a way which may seem, at most, tangentially connected to the original topic.
To understand the intricacies of the plot, one must be prepared to discard the usual notions of spoon-fed character development through repetition, and accept the job of piecing together, puzzle-like, the backgrounds and motivations from scenes as they occur. The reward for those who successfully undertake this mission is a sense of how people completely separated in social role, geography, ethics, economic standing, and compelling interests may be affected or outright intertwined by shared events and global phenomenon. This interconnectedness occurs whether the characters are aware of it or not, and whether or not they have any control over their circumstances, much as it does in real life. Each person's kindnesses or cruelties can have a far-reaching impact, outside the vision of the initiator, and no film I've seen has been as successful in illustrating this point as Syriana.
All the aforementioned tangents do add together, their vector sum forming a clear direction of plot motion in which seemingly minor events are part of a larger web of causality. In order to establish this web in the finite allotted time, Syriana sacrifices some of the developmental conveniences to which many audience members are accustomed in movies for a detailed, densely-filled, far-reaching script. What one stands to gain from this movie will be proportional to the effort one invests in understanding it. When Syriana becomes available as a DVD, there will be greater potential to mitigate the negative opinions of some who didn't "get it" on the first pass but are open-minded enough to give the film a second viewing at a cheaper price.