George Clooney Won His Only Acting Oscar for This Complex Political Thriller (2024)

The career of George Clooney is as surprising as it is unsurprising. For a man of his looks, charm, and character, he has leaned heavily into that when it comes to the films he makes and the characters he portrays. Films like Ocean's 11, Up in the Air, and Michael Clayton all play into the suave, sophisticated man that Clooney seems to be in real life. Aside from being cool and successful with audiences, though, he has also garnered the attention of critics at various stages of his career. Films like the latter two above, alongside Alexander Payne's gentle drama The Descendants, have given him multiple Academy Award acting nominations. Behind the camera, Clooney has been nominated for his journalist drama Good Night, and Good Luck and the political thriller The Ides of March, while winning for producing the real-life hostage thriller Argo.

What Is Syriana About?

Clooney won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor — his first ever nomination — in 2006 for the complex political thriller Syriana, written and directed by Stephen Gaghan. Clooney plays Bob Barnes, a veteran CIA officer who is working against the illegal arms trade in the Middle East. The film has an exceptional ensemble cast featuring heavy hitters including Matt Damon, Christopher Plummer, Jeffrey Wright, and William Hurt. The film, (much like Gaghan's earlier screenwriting success Traffic, an exceptional ensemble crime drama in and of itself) is composed of various interlocking narratives, jumping between Iran, Switzerland, Lebanon, Spain, and various places in the United States. It was shot on five continents with over 200 locations featured.

Syriana is a very loose adaptation of Robert Baer's memoir See No Evil, but Gaghan was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 2006 Academy Awards, losing out to Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco for Crash. But Clooney rightfully won in a stacked field for his portrayal of Barnes, puncturing his normally cool and calm performances with a subtlety and vulnerability rarely seen in his filmography. He notoriously gained more than 30 pounds for the role and let his stubble go a bit grizzly, giving himself an unglamorous and uncharacteristic appearance, continuing a strong tradition of actors being rewarded for undergoing significant transformations for roles. Clooney suffered during filming, however — while filming a torture scene, he was taped to a chair that toppled, hitting his head and suffering significant neurological damage that led to extensive memory loss and a 12-hour surgery. He thankfully made a full recovery and has continued to partake in and produce some astounding pieces of cinema. It was in Syriana, though, where he reached heights he is yet to reach since.

In ‘Syriana’, Everything Is Connected

Syriana tells four interlocking stories. Gaghan was familiar with this narrative structure from Traffic, but it has been used to great effect in cinema on countless occasions. The first storyline is about Bryan Woodman (Damon), an energy analyst who becomes the economic adviser to Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) during a tragedy in Marbella. They meet and work in Geneva, with Woodman flying his wife (Amanda Peet) and family over. Prince Nasir is pushing for economic reform with Woodman's help, but his father, the Emir (Nadim Sawalha), chooses a different son as the heir, causing Prince Nasir to plot a coup.The second storyline is set in Pakistan, where Saleem Ahmed Khan (Shahid Ahmed) and his son, Wasim (Mazhar Munir), have been laid off from the Connex oil refinery where they worked. Fearing deportation, they join a local madrasa and begin to learn Arabic, soon slipping and falling under the influence of an Islamic fundamentalist (Amr Waked) who seeks to radicalize the two men and use them for suicide missions.

The next storyline takes place mostly in Washington D.C. and Texas in the world of politics and lobbying, revolving around a suspicious merger between Connex and Killen — two oil companies with dubious contracts and motives. Bennett Holiday (Wright), a corporate lawyer, meets with Dean Whiting (Plummer) who suspects that Killen made some under-the-table payments to win oil rights in Kazakhstan, subsequently finding payments from a Texan businessman (Tim Blake Nelson) to Kazakh officials. The U.S. Attorney (Donald Clennon) pressures Holiday into finding a second "fall guy" so that the Department of Justice will drop the whole case on the merger.

The final storyline concerns Bob Barnes (Clooney) who notices suspicious activity regarding missiles in the Middle East. Barnes is reassigned to a desk job after kicking up a fuss by writing dangerous and critical memos and is sent back to the field to assassinate Prince Nasir. He travels to Lebanon, meets with an old friend (Hurt), and hires a mercenary named Mussawi (Mark Strong) to help him kidnap Nasir. Mussawi is an Iranian agent, though, and has Barnes kidnapped and tortured himself. Barnes' boss at the CIA, Terry George (Jamey Sheridan), sets him up as the scapegoat for the assassination plan being leaked and revokes his passports. Barnes coerces Dean Whiting into getting his passports back for him and travels once more to the Middle East.

‘Syriana’ Is a Masterclass in Telling Multiple Stories Simultaneously

The main thing Syriana has going for itself is how the complexity of its plot is made to seem simple and comprehensible to any audience. The thought-provoking, multi-layered narrative manages to juggle stories across the world, best mirroring the real economic aspects of the oil trade and the War on Terror.Telling stories from multiple perspectives works well as a narrative function in cinema, but that doesn't mean it is easy. Gaghan does an exquisite job at balancing all the characters and different parts of the world in which the story is set. The stories are deeply rooted in real-world issues of geopolitics, global oil trade, and U.S. foreign policy. Its portrayal of corruption, corporate influence, and the human consequences of power struggles feels authentic and grounded. It shares similarities with this masterly film starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. Syriana doesn't shy away from showing how oil, money, and politics intertwine in ways that leave many casualties in their wake, making it both timely and timeless.

The cast all put in exceptional performances, but Clooney is the stand-out as Bob Barnes, the man who finds himself in a geopolitical quagmire after he falls foul of his bosses. Besides the physical transformation Clooney underwent, he effectively shows the moral conflict and internal struggle of a man caught in the murky politics of oil, power, and corruption. Clooney captures the vulnerability and isolation of a man who realizes that the system he's been serving has betrayed him. His portrayal reflects the complexity of a person questioning his role and morality within the larger, often heartless, machinery of international politics.

‘Syriana’ Remains as Timeless Today as When It First Came Out

Syriana helped redefine the political thriller genre by embracing a highly complex, multi-narrative structure that avoided easy answers or Hollywood-style dramatization. Its intellectual rigor, moral ambiguity, and refusal to spoon-feed audiences set it apart from conventional thrillers, influencing later films and TV series that adopted similar approaches to storytelling and political commentary (The Constant Gardener, A Most Wanted Man, and Homeland are strong examples). The film’s dense narrative structure challenged viewers to engage with the complexities of international relations and left a lasting influence on how global political dramas were crafted.

The cinematography of Robert Elswit, who won an Oscar for his work on this glorious film, is immaculate, capturing both the rugged barrenness of the desert and the dimly-lit offices of Washington with equal skill. Even the score, from maestro composer Alexandre Desplat, is brilliant, perfectly capturing the film's thematic changes and global situations. Syriana may have been mostly overlooked when awards season came in 2006, but don't let that deter from any potential viewing of this film. If you want to see a movie that tells a serious, important story, done so in a highly effective manner, then few are better than Syriana for that.

Syriana

R

Release Date

November 23, 2005

Director

Stephen Gaghan

Cast

Kayvan Novak , George Clooney , Amr Waked , Christopher Plummer , Jeffrey Wright , Chris Cooper

Runtime

128 Minutes

Main Genre

Drama

Syriana is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

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