Storyline
The Middle Eastern oil industry is the backdrop of this tense drama, which weaves together numerous story lines. Bennett Holiday is an American lawyer in charge of facilitating a dubious merger of oil companies, while Bryan Woodman, a Switzerland-based energy analyst, experiences both personal tragedy and opportunity during a visit with Arabian royalty. Meanwhile, veteran CIA agent Bob Barnes uncovers an assassination plot with unsettling origins.
Directors
Cast
Max Minghella, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Christopher Plummer, Peter Gerety, Tim Blake Nelson, Mark Strong, Richard Lintern, William Hurt, Jeffrey Wright, Robert Foxworth, Viola Davis, Chris Cooper, Nicky Henson, Alexander Siddig, Kayvan Novak, Shahid Ahmed, Amanda Peet, Steven Hinkle, Roger Yuan, Nicholas Art, Badria Timimi, Amr Waked, Daisy Tormé, Mazhar Munir, Jocelyn Quivrin, Bikram Singh Bhamra, Jamey Sheridan, Nadim Sawalha, Akbar Kurtha, Sonnell Dadral, Ozzie Yue
Trailer
Reviews
100
Rolling Stone
Takes off with the lightning speed of a thriller, the gonzo force of frontline journalism and the emotional wallop of a drama that puts a human face on shocking statistics.
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)
A film that transcends its obvious timeliness to say some elemental things about personal loyalty and institutional betrayal.
90
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.
88
ReelViews
In today's environment, it's a rare thing to find a movie with interesting characters in dense, intelligent storylines, but that's what Syriana offers. It is one of the best films of 2005.
80
Variety
A weighty and deeply intriguing look at the many-tentacled beast that is the international oil industry. Wide-ranging and restlessly probing, Stephen Gaghan's second directorial effort uses the same mosaic storytelling technique as in his Oscar-winning screenplay for "Traffic."
