[sam h]

I also saw the movie Saturday night and had a more positive reaction. I don't see why corruption or geopolitics has to be shocking or surprising to be a worthy subject for a movie.

(Note: Spoilers Below)

The one thing I thought was interesting was that the filmmakers had a surprisingly astute perspective on several aspects of Middle Eastern politics and Middle Eastern societies, but that they blundered a couple times pretty badly in looking at the US. Regarding the former, I was impressed that they understood/portrayed (a) that a lot of these gulf states import all their manual labor and that this creates a very bizarre, almost apartheid-like dynamic and (b) that Hezbollah is much more than a terrorist organization at this point and has essentially replaced the state as the major provider of services in large parts of Lebanon. Regarding the latter, my biggest objection was the idea that the CIA would assassinate the emir in such a transparent fashion. Who else are they going to blame that one on?

Overall, I liked the movie but thought it was a little scattered. The attempts to add depth to some of the characters by briefly delving into their family lives didn't work that well. I think you need to either go further or not go there at all. I didn't think any of the scenes with the lawyer and his drunk dad added much of anything, nor did that one scene with Clooney and his son.

I also thought that they should have focused more on the Clooney character, who was by far the most interesting.