I'm new and not sure if this has already been posted but I didn't find the thread when I did a search so here goes.

so I guess people are usually clear about a plot because plots in literature and in movies are usually simple. But I guess in the case of Syriana there seems to be a lot of things going on so I guess I should talk about what it is about or what I think it is about.

The movie is about the structural underpinning of the way political relations between states work - viz., through corruption. Corporations seem to dominate political relations and even influence our own goverment to no small extant. The oil corporation in the movie needed to merge with another but they violated some laws in doing so. The government/politicians needed to create, in their own words, an "illusion" that their was a "police" that regulated their actions. However, the governement officials actually work with the corporations and needs their agreement on who to prosecute and who not to. The conclusion is that there is no real regulating body to police corporate malfeasance.

Now what Syriana shows is bad about corporate corruption isn't just the money they pilfer from other states but the poverty and resultant terrorism they produce. There is nearly no dispute that poverty and unemployment are the main causes of instability, revolution, and terrorism. Because corrporations colluding with government, such as the one in the movie, are able to prevent governments of other countries from building their own infrastructure, they leave nations rich in natural resources such as oil poor. As a result unemployment and poverty are rampant. This is the main cause of terrorism in my opionion and the director doesn't seem to disagree. The director shows this point through the young unemployed men who cannot get a job and, consequently, cannot build a future and end up as suicide bombers.

The movie also points out the methods of the CIA and how they work - viz., assasinating governors that refuse to act as proxies to the corporatocracy. In real life they are called the "CIA Jackels." They usually threaten/warn the governors before they assinate them (this has been done in Latin America). In the movie it was by blowing them up.

Syriana is a good movie because it is able to show how the corporatocracy really works and also points out that it is because the corportocracy keeps mingling in the affairs of the Middle East that many Americans are now dying.

i loathed this film.

the whole plot was a sad showcase of idiotic liberal shibboleths. the film tries to sucker you into believing its smartness so they can smuggle in anemic ideas that have long made the rounds of certain fringe partisan circles. this isn't history. this isn't even an honest picture of contemporary dynamics. it is a feelgood albeit camouflaged disdain for america. i don't know what is sicker for them; to imagine a universally beloved USA that can do no wrong IF ONLY they would reform certain wayward tendencies or their lovely ignorance of interntional cultures and politics. toss up, baby.

The discussion is here. For some reason, I can't just add this post to that thread, but I'll move this over into Dramas, so others may comment.