Syriana has been the strangest one I've ever seen. I can't decide whether I liked it or not! The idea of the conspiracy and oil industry sounds true. But I have to say that there have been a lot of boring unrelated scenes in this movie.

Syriana - I used to live in the middle east and the portrayal of the immigrant workers was spot on - although not sure how many were extremist as portrayed. The range of emotion was mesmerising - child drowing was absoultely awful. My heart was shocked for ever. A very good film.

I saw Syriana over a week ago, but I have been putting off writing my review because I knew this was going to be a difficult job.

This film is tough to review because parts of it I really liked and parts just didn't hit the spot. To put it bluntly I'm divided over the film that has divided so many critics.

Performance wise Syriana is great, and everyone in it is top notch; and while no character dominates proceedings, Clooney is clearly the star. Whether his portrayal as a bearded, overweight CIA field agent was worthy of the Oscar I'm not sure, but it is Clooney that at times carries this film, and he ultimately provides the films highlights. There are plenty of other superb performances to credit in this movie - notably Christopher Plummer, Eastender Nicky Henson, and Matt Damon. With so many strong performances, alongside ace cameo's from William Hurt and Mark Strong, this movie certainly delivered in the acting stakes.

Parts of the story were also great. All the scenes involving Clooney's character Bob Burrows had me glued to the screen. Burrows is a CIA field agent who is sent to assassinate Beirut to take out an influential Arab Prince in a mission that is fraught with difficulties. Other strong parts of the film include the story arc of Matt Damon's character - an oil analyst who is fighting a personal tragedy in order to do what he thinks is right. The third of the main stories involves Jeffrey Wright's by the book lawyer investigating the merger of two major oil corporations - this is probably the weakest of the major plots because it is the most difficult to follow and understand.

There are also a couple of subplots to contend with, that include the recruitment of would be suicide bombers, and also the power struggle between two Arab Princes vying to be King once their father passes on.

I think the film is a good one, but extremely difficult to follow. It may even require two viewings to really appreciate it properly. Syriana has a great ensemble cast, but it's problems lie in its structure and the lack of coherence it provides. The multiple plots are clumsily muddled together to leave some great multiple stories that haven't been put together as well as they should be. The trick with a film like this is to make it fully coherent, and I think the production team should take a look at Traffic and Crash to see how a film like this should be structured.

That all said, Syriana is an important and interesting film with some grade A acting and memorable scenes. I would recommend it as long as you aren't expecting an easy ride.

Critics are heatedly split on this one: some hail it as one of the year's best films, while others have reserved a spot for it on their 'Worst of 2005' lists. My own opinion of SYRIANA falls somewhere in the middle. Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan (the Oscar-winning writer of 2000's drug-themed TRAFFIC), this film is an often-gripping look at America's growing thirst for Middle Eastern oil. Its Altman-esque structure - i.e. several interweaving plot lines and characters telling the same basic story - is very similar to that of TRAFFIC (not to mention last year's CRASH). When done right, this kind of film makes for a compelling night at the movies; examples are the aforementioned TRAFFIC and 1999's magnificent MAGNOLIA.

For its part, SYRIANA doesn't quite live up to its lofty ambitions. On the plus side, it has a great ensemble cast working for it, led by a never-better George Clooney as a rebel CIA agent, and the subject matter couldn't be more relevant. Some of the individual stories are outstanding; its sympathetic portraits of Middle Eastern life - one involves unemployed, disenfranchised young men being slowly drawn towards what they believe to be a noble cause; the other focuses on an embattled, moderate prince (Alexander Siddig) struggling to modernize his oil-rich country without having to kowtow to America's every demand - are Hollywood's best attempts at exploring the complexities of Middle Eastern affairs in recent memory. Unfortunately, the film's muddled, overly complex narrative proved to be a serious distraction for me at times. Maybe it speaks to my own dimwittedness, but I found myself struggling at times to figure out who certain people were and what role they played in the proceedings. By the end of the film, it all mostly makes sense, but my overall response to the film was somewhat muted by my earlier bouts of head-scratching.

Still, it's one of the most hotly discussed flicks of the last few months, and while it's not necessarily greater than the some of its parts, it's worthy of a look.