This movie is certainly not for all, or even most tastes. If you prefer something light, breezy, and uncomplicated, don’t even waste your time. It gets up in your face and under your skin and grows only more confrontational and damning as it progresses.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 13, 2022

A complex thriller that challenges its audience with a fascinating story woven among several plot threads.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Nov 19, 2019

I'm hard-pushed to think of a more cynical and self-critical American picture, and one that so radically and empathetically portrays the genesis of Islamic suicide bombers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 16, 2018

Syriana is an American movie that reaches out beyond itself. Watching it made me feel hopeful -- a rare sensation in a cinema.

Full Review | Jan 17, 2018

... If you can avoid getting too hung up on the details, Syriana is a brave attempt to blitz the goody-baddy dynamics of cold-war film-making and concentrate on the ambiguities of modern geopolitics.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2017

A skeleton of theme minus the meat of resonance

Full Review | Sep 1, 2009

A film that treats its audience as adults, this is an extremely rewarding work that handsomely pays off the concentration required to watch it.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2009

This is intelligent, committed, and politically provocative, though its narrative puzzle box may prompt you to throw up your hands and let ExxonMobil go on running the world.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2008

You didn't understand all of it? It went by too fast to take it all in? There was too much information to mentally digest? Yeah, well, that was kind of the point.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 28, 2008

Its dark, dog-eat-dog vision of the world we live in may give you geopolitical nightmares.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2007

Probes a significant subject but treats its people as mere stick figures carrying exposition from place to place.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Sep 23, 2007

Preferring probing questions to pat solutions, the film drills deep in its exploration of the US's ventures, both economic and military, in the Middle East.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 6, 2007

The most troublesome part of Syriana is that the movie is, in fact, so easy to believe.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2007

Gaghan kapitulira pred holivudskim konvencijama te film zaklju%u010Duje spektakularnom, ali banalnom i krajnje neuvjerljivom zavr%u0161nicom

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jun 21, 2007

Politically-paranoid, if well-intentioned, this disjointed message movie doesn't really do much more than indict the usual suspects.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 15, 2007

In addition to the performances there's a wealth of memorable detail.

Full Review | Jan 20, 2007

This is neither realism nor tragedy. It's cynicism, which exposes itself most nakedly in Damon's addresses to the Arab characters, and in Gaghan's own portrayal of them.

Full Review | Nov 11, 2006

Interesting and worth watching, despite the fact that complete comprehension of the film seems just beyond the reach of the viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 11, 2006

It's entirely possible that Gaghan just isn't an actor's director.

Full Review | Oct 7, 2006