Syriana (2005) 6/10

Starring : George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Mazhar Munir, Tim Blake Nelson, Amanda Peet, Christopher Plummer, Alexander Siddig
Director : Stephen Gaghan
Running Time : 128 mins

When middle Eastern heir Prince Nasir Al-Subaai (Siddig) does a deal with China for drilling rights, US oil company Connex does a shady deal with a small oil company that has landed a contract in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile the CIA plot to kill Prince Nasir in order to get his brother into power in the hope of getting the drilling agreement reversed in favour of the US.

This is a clever movie that manages to show the lengths corporations will go to in order to stay in business, but it still runs too long for my liking. Coupled with the fact that it doesn’t really have that satisfying an ending and you’ve got a movie which has a lot of potential but doesn’t quite go far enough to meet that potential.

You’ll like this if you liked : Hotel Rwanda