It is customary at many opera productions to hand out notes to the audience about what is happening in the different acts of the musical work, often because the opera is sung in a foreign language. Most critics and moviegoers have remarked the plot of Syriana is jumping to so many places and to so many individuals that one needs the equivalent of opera notes to stay abreast of what is happening. Alas, if this were the only problem of the film, my weekly evening at the movies would have been splendid. When I form a judgment about a film I asked myself. Given the subject matter, how well was the film been designed and executed. In the case of Syrania, the answer is: poorly. The voracious increase in demand for oil from rapidly growing China and India and the dwindling reserves around the world is posing an enormous economics and political challenge during the next couple of decades.

The makers of Syriana had an genuine opportunity to create a true international thriller that could compete with the captivating TV series 24 whose fifth season I am presently watching on the treadmill. But I walked away with the impression that a modestly talented writer—whose only knowledge about the world comes from reading the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post—had decided to weave together a story involving many newspapers headlines:  the international competition for the remaining oil supplies, political corruption in Washington, undemocratic Middle Eastern governments, the exploitation of low level CIA operatives, immoral behavior the United States in international affairs, and radicalizing Islam. Lacking any insider knowledge, the film does not shed deeper light on any of these topics than what even a superficial newspaper reader already knows. The successful Cold War thrillers were often written by people who previously worked the secret service or at least had good connections to this world.  The author of Syriana seems never to have left his apartment and instead merely fantasized about what corrupt business and government would look like. The movie simplistically invents a lot of bad people in the oil industry and in governments and blames them for the predicament we are in. But it never dares to tell the SUV driving movie viewer that he or she is in large measure to blame for why America needs to keep the oil flowing to its harbors at whatever moral cost that entails. In a democracy, politicians don