It's good. Check it out, or at least add it to your Netflix queue for the future. I got a funny feeling, however, that people will just walk out of the theater thinking, "It's just a movie. Stuff like that doesn't really happen."
I'm quite sure that some professor around here offered extra credit to his/her twit students to go see that film. There were lots of late teens/early twenties people in the theater, and that was probably the last night to get the extra credit. I wouldn't imagine that this film is on the social calendar of the local Xtreme, hip, cutting edge youth... Unless there's extra credit involved and a chance of a C or a B- in a useless PoliSci class. When the
Robert Baer character was having his fingernails pulled out, I heard a girl say, "Like, oh my God, that's so gross." Someone else was frantically text messaging.
I tried to visualize the professor:
Late 40s or early 50s. Volvo (with a Kerry or Nader sticker on the ass end). Pretty much broke. Drinks a lot of cheap wine. Eats anti-depressants like candy. Donates to public radio. Desperate to make some kind of impression on the sprawling mass of young people, the professor knows they don't (and probably can't) read. Not really. With all the video games, sports on TV and drinking to be done, who has time to read much of anything? In desperation, the professor thinks, "Maybe I'll offer extra credit to them if they see Syriana. Maybe they'll get something out of it."
Take another sip of cheap wine, man, and slap another bumper sticker on the ass end of your Volvo.
It was probably a coincidence that so many students were in the theater, but I couldn't help thinking about that would-be professor.
That's mostly what was on my mind when I was watching Syriana. These types of films are good, but, for people like me (and you), it's more of an excuse to get out of the house. It was good to see something that had an interesting plot, wasn't too loud and didn't involve CGI actors. ;)
posted by Kevin at 12:55 PM