Syriana

[Ed Miller]

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I think the point of the sympathetic character in the kid was that he was a pawn - it was a statement against terrorists, but it differentiated between higher ups, those who are true to the terrorist ideals, and those being manipulated. He was quickly sent off to die for the cause while his leaders stayed safe.

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I agree with your interpretation of the message, but contrast it to mainstream American culture's take on real kids like him.

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I didn't entirely follow the Hezbollah role - how did they get treated sympathetically?

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Hizbollah saved Clooney's character from death and left the "Donate on your way out of town" postcard.

[Exsubmariner]

"contrast it to mainstream American culture's take on real kids like him."

Could you explain that a little more? I am not aware that there is a mainstream take. I personally pity kids like this, and I think a lot of people in America in particular have sympathy for anyone who is subject to manipulation under religious pretenses.

P.S. Love your books.

[andyfox]

"The most sympathetic major character (IMO) is the pakistani kid"

Every American in the movie was an a-hole. Even the "heroes," Damon and Clooney. And the higher up you went, the worse.

The reaction in the theater I was in was the same as another poster described: Dead silence at the end, no applause. (As opposed to two other "liberal" political movies I saw, The Silent Gardener, and Good Night and Good Luck, where there was a lot of applause.) Seemed the audience found the unbridled pessimism of Syriana depressing.

[Shaun]

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The most sympathetic major character (IMO) is the pakistani kid, and Hizbollah gets positive treatment also. I'm surprised Time Warner was willing to be affiliated with a movie that "promotes terrorism" like this.

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Have you never read Time Magazine?

[Borodog]

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It's an intensely political movie, so I think discussion of it belongs here. And I've managed to get myself into a position where what I say goes. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Be that as it may, there is a thread in OOT on the movie. Although my politics are in sync with the screenwriter's, I didn't like the movie very much. A lot of activity, but no storytelling. Clooney and Damon are competent actors, but not more than that; they are not interesting enough to sustain a movie for me. (I think that's why I didn't like either of the Bourne movies either, Damon is a boring actor.)

And the "plot" was impossible to follow. You have to keep reminding yourself who the characters are, if you understood who they were in the first place. An interesting movie, but not a good one.

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My wife and I saw it last night, and it was not a good film. Not a terrible film, but certainly not a good one. Excruciatingly boring, no likable characters at all, not enough exposition to connect the dots clearly enough to draw the viewer into giving a crap, other than in some intellectual fashion that they already give a crap about the topic of oil and the middle east and corruption or they wouldn't be in the theater. Large parts of the film seemed to add depth to characters . . . along the wrong dimensions (dead kid, drunken father, prom discussion, etc). The subplot with the Pakistani youth seemed spliced in from a completely different (and far better) film. We yamned the whole way through and couldn't believe the film was as short as our watches indicated. If I'd had to sit through another 45 minutes, I'd have been yearning to have my fingernails torn out.