Syriana
In his directorial debut, Stephen Gaghan turns in a tense political thriller in the same mold as his screenplay for Traffic—a vast array of characters whose lives are inexorably connected to each other whether they know it or not. Using practically the same visual style of Traffic director Steven Soderbergh, Gaghan weaves together a complex tale of power and corruption in the U.S. oil industry, the U.S. government's efforts to protect the industry's interests, and the tangential effects of those efforts on the lives of ordinary Americans and Arabs. Syriana is so consistently smart from start to finish, even smart people will find themselves in over their heads—a sobering metaphor for the whole political, economic and military mess the world's demand for oil has created. But despite the film's function as an intellectual exercise, Gaghan makes it accessible by keeping the politics neutral: This isn't about Republican vs. Democrat. If people come away from Syriana with anything, it should be the realization that it doesn't matter one bit which party is in control—the same forces of power, greed and corruption remain in play. One of the few weakspots of Syriana—and it's a big one—is the story of a young Pakistani oil worker who is recruited into Muslim school and converted into a suicide bomber. It's a hell of a thing to make a human bomb out of yourself, no matter what your religion is, and there isn't enough time devoted to how and why he was willing to do that.