Syriana, sounds like some strange kind of sci-fi movie like Solaris in reality its more down to earth. Based on CIA or American intelligence operations in the Middle East, the movie shows the many different stakegolders that are affected by the liquid gold in the MidEast.

As expected by Steven Soderbergh who directed Traffic (2000), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/ the movie doesn't allow you to get distracted or you lose the plot with snapshots from different people's lives, from Georgetown, NY, Damascus and The Oil Sheikhs in the Emirates. This complicated cachophy of images can bewilder to the point of people verbalizing their confusion in the theatre.

However, it does provide a balanced perspective to the issue of oil showing that each stakeholder has their own agenda. Potentially, this movie could be very political so it was a positive experience to see very little politics and more of the issues at stake discussed.

For anyone that is open minded or interested to learn about geopolitics, international and global issues, Syriana adds to the issue of oil and the Middle East similar to Traffic and the North American drugs trade. Recommended.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/