Syriana

Syriana is obviously Warner Bros.' attempt to counterprogram Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is aimed primarily at children, with a movie for adults. It's a movie that demands and rewards close attention, writes A.O Scott in the New York Times. The mental labor of figuring out just what is going on is part of what makes the film such a rich and entertaining experience, he observes, adding that it succeeds in being one of the best geopolitical thrillers in a very long time. Nevertheless, several critics complain that such mental labor left them exhausted and confused. Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News writes that the plot is as inscrutable as Einstein's theory of relativity. But after thinking about it a few days, Mathews writes, he concluded that the movie adds up to one of the smartest and most ambitious political thrillers in years. But if you find a more difficult movie to follow this year, it will be in Mandarin without subtitles. Roger Ebert in a four-star Chicago Sun-Times review that may be as complex as the movie itself, concludes, The movie's plot is so complex we're not really supposed to follow it, we're supposed to be surrounded by it. Since none of the characters understand the whole picture, why should we? If the movie shook down into good guys and bad guys, we'd be the good guys, of course. Or if it was a critique of American policy, we might be the bad guys. But what if everybody is a bad guy, because good guys don't even suit up to play this game? Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times praises it as a fearless and ambitious piece of work, made with equal parts passion and calculation, an unapologetically entertaining major studio release with compelling real-world relevance, a film that takes numerous risks and thrives on them all. A handful of critics, however, pan the movie. Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun calls it an exercise in futility posing as a modernistic thriller and writes that it comes together like a nihilistic jigsaw puzzle -- with a few pieces removed for that special, indefinable dash of pseudo-density. Peter Howell in the Toronto Star, while remarking that Syriana has the potential for greatness, nevertheless remarks that he got the impression that [writer/director Stephen] Gaghan doesn't really know what he's making a movie about. ... It leaves us ... scratching our heads and wondering if we've seen something truly important or something that just thinks it is. Similarly, Amy Biancolli concludes in the Houston Chronicle: Syriana is an ambitious edifice, built with conviction and skill. But I'm not sure I understand it, and I'm not sure I care.