Three Sticks — Something for Everyone

Caution: This is my first movie review and it may contain spoilers

Movie Review

Tonight I saw Syriana. All I can say is WOW. This is one of the best movies that has come out in awhile. Like many others have said before, Syriana is really tough describe. It is a movie about oil, greed, national security, terrorism, life, loss and transition. Is that enough?

Let’s just dive in. The movie begins with an CIA assassin (George Clooney) with a conscience who sells 2 missiles to a terrorist group in the middle east. He is immediately disturbed because one of the missiles is subsequently sold right in front of him to another group. We learn later that he has rigged the missile to explode and kill the buyers (which it does), however the other missile ends up with another terrorist group and has a very different destiny.

From that opening the movie shifts focus to a proposed oil company merger and all of the fallout that stems from that merger. Soon hard questions need to be asked:

• What is in America’s best interest? A democratic, pro-western, pro-business Middle East? The status quo?
• What role should private companies play in setting national policy?
• Are the religious differences between the West and the Middle East really the issue or is it economic policy?
• Are we really running out of oil? Check out “Life After the Oil Crash “

I don’t want to portray this movie as the standard cliché where American business and government get in bed together to subjugate a region and people. This movie is much more nuanced than that.

Here is the best example, the Saudi leader that would create a democratic, progressive, pro-business Saudi Arabia and later Middle East. He wants to blaze a path that eliminates the status quo and forces America and American companies to compete in a fair market for the oil resources of the Middle East.

In contrast, his brother is content to get in bed with an American oil company and maintain the status quo.

Provocative and disturbing. I left this movie scared for the future.

I strongly encourage everyone to see this movie and think about everything going on in that region.

The Future — The Really Scary Bits

Syriana puts the current geopolitical landscape in sharp relief. It’s simply terrifying.

For example, at one point in the movie a devote Muslim who is clearly recruiting new terrorist says,
“there is no way for human nature and the modern world to co-exist” and that “every liberal society has failed, that the West has failed, Christian theology has failed, economic reform has failed.”

This is just plain scary. If this is even close to true, how do you combat someone whose belief system attacks everything that you know to be good and that has worked with our society?

What do we do? If we are really running out of oil and given that we need oil to make virtually everything in our modern world what should we do?

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