Syriana

A few weeks after 9/11, Steven Soderbergh sent Stephen Gaghan a copy of Robert Baer’s CIA memoir. Before a frame was shot, Gaghan talked Warner Bros. into an unlimited research budget with no deadline, then spent six weeks in 2002 travelling with Baer through Washington, Geneva, the French Riviera, Lebanon, Syria and Dubai to meet lobbyists, arms dealers and oil traders. The script carried five storylines, all five filmed. The one built around Michelle Monaghan was dropped when the picture grew too tangled, and the Greta Scacchi scenes as Barnes’s wife went with it. What survived still holds 100 speaking parts. Harrison Ford was offered Bob Barnes first and passed, saying later he had not felt strongly enough about the truth of the material and had made a mistake. George Clooney won Best Supporting Actor for the part at the 78th Academy Awards, a night when he was also nominated as director and co writer of Good Night, and Good Luck and lost both. The Gaghan screenplay for this film was nominated too, and also lost. A good fit if you are willing to join four strands yourself and track names and companies as you go. Not for viewers who, like the audiences grading it a C on CinemaScore, want to be told plainly who does what and why.