I downloaded Syriana? the other day. Its one of the movies I really wanted to watch. I didnt get a chance to watch when I arrived here cause it was already somewhat old in the theatre world. I dont think this movie will come out anytime soon back home. It is a really interesting movie, especially for people from the Gulf. It was basically talking about Saudi Arabia, even though the royal family in the movie was called Al Sabahi (yes with an “i”). This movie has an interesting concept behind it. It talks about how the US have insight and/or influence in the Middle East.
The movie starts out with a dying Amir, who has a lot of oil in his country and has a huge palace in Marbella, Spain (if you still didnt get it, he passed away on August 1, 2005). Even though all the facts are not real, for example, the Amir gave the power to his son? (not his brother ahm ahm), but it gave me an interesting insight about a certain point. The Amir has two sons, the older one very well educated and wants to really rebuild his country and introduce reforms, the younger one is basically corrupt and lives for money and fame. Before the King, I mean Amir dies, he chooses the younger brother to take power (with US influence of course). The older brother plans a coup to take over the government cause he knows that his brother will not achieve anything, he gets all the people in place (ministers, military, etc..) and when he is ready to face his people, his convoy is shot down by one of those Predator planes? (the unmanned planes that the US has). Do the US really want us not to move forward just to satisfy their oil needs?
Putting blame on the US only is plain stupid, corrupt government officials are in every country, but corrupt businessmen from other countries that corrupt our corrupt officials is a big deal. Does the US want us (mainly Saudi Arabia, cause lets face it they are the ones with the oil that matters) to not really spend our money on our selves, and instead, and this is according to the movie, spend the money in their hotels, buy their private planes and yachts, and invest with them?
Another interesting thing in the movie is this cleric who says why does a country with 5% of the world’s population, spend 50% of the world’s military budget? Cause they cant get their point across any other way.
The movie could have been better in terms of tweaking the plot a bit and better directing. It has many different things going on at the same time, but at the end they all meet in one way or another. Its very interesting and very bold. Watch it.
Agreed! I loved the movie.. it was realistic and shows the bad side of things!!
its not a good movie to watch when you’re sleepy heh
There were 3 main plots
i felt that the lawyer plot hasn’t given my depth to the movie and he could have expanded it
and why couldn’t he just shout ” THERE IS A ROCKET COMING AT YA “
“hatha laysa khata’a”…..lol, that guy took them from the soccer feild to the mosque!
Marzouq,
The movie shows the sad sides of reality, everything is about money, everything. Reminds me of another movie I like, Wag the Dog.
Carlsb3rg,
Watch it again bro.
I would have thought that you dont have sleep problem
Forza,
Yeah the thing with the lawyer only reveled minor things that are in every industry i believe. They could have had him uncover bigger things.
and lol about the ending, the could have had him at least say something or change the expression on his face, and whats with the radicals recruiting out of work foreigners to become terrorists, did that ever happen?
TweeZ,
Lol, il moshkila from the mosque to the oil tanker:)
there were a number of quotes (arabic) that made me laugh, but that one topped them all
I didn’t enjoy the movie very much when I saw it in the theater last year. It just seemed to me that some of the perspectives of the characters given in the movie were too radical compared to possible counterparts in real life. Many of the characters seemed stereotypical on the cynical side, leaving the whole storyline unbalanced in my mind (the only character who even tries to put semblance of balance is the lawyer, but his side wasn’t developed as much as I would have liked to have seen).
A lot of people think this is great since it shows how bad the U.S. government and kings of oil-rich countries are, and how it’s great that there’s finally a movie that isn’t afraid to point out these geopolitical issues, blah blah. Well, firstly, these issues aren’t new. Second, since I’m familiar with some of the issues presented in the movie, I was put off by how extreme the representation was of these issues. The only thing I liked about the movie were the actors; I think the casting was excellent and I enjoyed watching Matt Damon and his character’s dialog. Maybe I’d enjoy the movie more if I watched it again, but for now I don’t understand why so many people think it’s great (other than that it goes against the grain of typical Hollywood movies).
Just my honest opinion of the movie.
also one thing that bugged me about the movie
they had to let the foreigners work in the oil field just to link them to gulf reigon , but then they were kicked
okay what kind of crap company get temp workers for oil FIELD ?!
yeah, and these guys did not seem like chemical engineers or even supported any degrees at all! The way the picked them up in the begining looked like they were picking up sheep for 3eed! And the part where the Banghali got the crap beat from him, what was that all about? I tell you, this movie does NOT have a fair focus of reality but extreme polarization of streotypes.
I agree with all of u, the movie is too extreme with some parts.
CrazyDiamond, well i enjoyed it mostly because of what u said, its not ur typical movie, and i have said that it could have benefited a lot by changing the plot a bit, and actually researching more with the issues it presented, it was an extreme representation of stuff, if more research was put into it, it would have been a lot better, a lot.
forzaq8,
i didnt get ur first point, what do u mean by “link”, well about the temp workers u say about, they exist, i have seen workers that work in the oil industry with the same conditions as those, they dont really work for the company, they are hired through subcontracts, so the company doesnt hold responsibility for them.
Tweez,
well u dont have to be an engineer to work in that industry, they are mainly maintenance workers, hand labor, they do relatively straight forward jobs, that we “wouldn’t do”, like carrying pipes, opening valves, stuff like that.
I didn’t like it!.
I watched it in Bahrain yesterday ..
and I kept wondering why the producer brought some actors who can speak clear Arabic!. God that was so awful!.
The movie had some many things going on in the same time .. the only good thing I liked in the movie was the message it brought to the American viewer that his country and specifically the adminsterations in the white house in many occasions played the very wrong strings in the Middle East .. in a way that totally made many of the people of the area hate anything American!.