If you can figure out what the fuck is going on in "Syriana," you are either writer/director Stephen Gagan or some pretentious schmuck who is just as phony and pedantic as he is. What a highfalutin piece of stinky ca-ca.

Gagan, whose previous claim to fame was that he wrote the racist and overblown "Traffic,"which Steven Soderbergh directed, is the force behind the equally racist and overblown "Syriana," a film that purports to be about the business of oil but is in fact about a group of four or five interconnected but utterly uninvolving story threads involving people who are somehow or another connected to the Middle East and/or the American government.

George Clooney, who loves political idealism seemingly as much as he loves pussy, is here in a mode so serious that it nearly makes us choke. Adorable Matt Damon is here because he wants to be taken seriously. Nice try you little hottie. You're so adorable. Yes you are. Yes you are. Boogie boogie boo! Ahem... er... where was I.

Jeffrey Wright is here because he is a great actor who is happy to get Hollywood money since his amazing turn in the TV event "Angels in America." Take every fucking cent you can get Jeff. You deserve it.

Anyway, for all their good intentions, they all fall prey to the all devouring pretension that permeates this film. This piece of crap masquerading as a film is so condensed and so full of overly overt, earnest intentions run amuck that it would take a three hour college course headed by several professors just to sift through the plot and map it out for the "common" person to understand what is going on within its 2 hour running time. I have better things to do than try and decipher this academic nonsense and I'm guessing you do to.

Notes:

Also with Christopher Plummer, Chris Cooper, Robert Foxworth, Amanda Peet, Jamey Sheridan, Max Minghella, Tim Blake Nelson, and William Hurt.

Clooney and Soderbergh are producers.

Cinematography by Robert Elswit.

Score by Alexander Desplat who, along with Clooney, is nominated for a Golden Globe.

Filmed in the U.S., Morocco, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

The film was cut severely after test screening audiences complained about the running time.

Clooney gained 35 pounds for the film.

Viewed in Austin in December of 2005.

Report Card

Script: F

Acting: C

Cinematography\Lighting: B+

Special Effects\Make Up: C

Music: C

Final Grade: F