B-

Prepare to be baffled and bewildered but also intrigued by the connections among the various plot threads in “Syriana,” an admirably serious but untidy, excessively schematic and more than slightly self-important take on the nexus between American business and government–specifically, petroleum mega-corporations and the entrenched secret forces that influence, if not directly control, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. To be sure, most of the plots, subplots and digressions are tied up fairly successfully by the close, but along the way you’re likely to be mystified by some of the murkier moments and constant shifts of focus among a small army of characters. And when everything does eventually come together, you might ask yourself whether the overarching theme of idealism crushed by skullduggery isn’t ultimately handled too bluntly and finished off too obviously, for all the expertise on display in front of the camera and behind it. Still, compared to recent serious-minded pictures that never found their footing–“The Interpreter” and “The Constant Gardener” come to mind–this one at least moves quickly and holds one’s attention, even if it never manages to achieve either the heights of intensity or the depths of feeling it’s clearly aiming for.

The script by Stephen Gaghan, which he also directs this time around, follows the template of the one he wrote for Stephen Soderbergh’s “Traffic,” with a series of interconnected plotlines shuffled like cinematic cards in a game, supposedly to form a winning hand in the end. One involves bearded, middle-aged, rumpled CIA agent Bob Barnes (George Clooney, who put on considerable weight for the part and is convincingly world-weary), whose sale of a couple of missiles on the black market leads to one winding up in the hands of Islamic militants. Another concerns Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright), a young corporate attorney in Washington who’s assigned by his firm’s powerful boss Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer) to act as fixer in an merger between two firms, the smaller of them led by amoral hot-shot Texan Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper), that’s being investigated by the Justice Department prior to approval; it’s clear that bribery and kickbacks are involved, probably centered on Pope’s more voluble friend Danny Dalton (Tim Blake Nelson). Meanwhile Geneva-based energy consultant Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) is hired as an advisor by Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig), the elder son of the emir (Nadim Sawalha) of an oil-rich sheikdom, who wants to use his country’s revenues in an enlightened fashion; but U.S. interests prefer his more pliable younger brother Meshal (Akbar Kurtha) as successor to the realm’s riches. And completely apart from all the goings-on at these higher levels is Wasim Khan (Mazhar Munir), a young Pakistani guest worker in the Gulf who’s drawn to radicalism and violence after he and his father are laid off from their jobs in the oil fields. And floating throughout the various story strands is a battalion of incidental characters: Barnes’ bosses (Jamey Sheridan and Jane Atkinson); Stan Goff (William Hurt), a retired agency man, now a consultant, to whom Bob occasionally turns for advice; Sydney Hewitt (Nicky Henson), an older lawyer under whom Holiday works in Whiting’s firm; Lee Janus (Peter Gerety), the head of the much larger oil company with which Pope’s smaller one is set to merge; Bryan’s wife Julie (Amanda Peet); Wasim’s father (Shahid Ahmed) and his friend Farooq (Sonnell Dadral), who also falls under the spell of a radical Moslem cleric; and Mussawi, a brutal operative active in Lebanon and Syria.

One has to admire the dexterity with which Gaghan juggles all the elements of his convoluted narrative, and as director he pulls off some striking individual scenes. One sure to be remembered is a sequence in which Barnes is tortured by the turncoat Mussawi, and another is a dialogue between the estranged Bryan and Julie after their older son has been killed in an accident. (If I’m not mistaken, the ghost, or perhaps the memory, of the dead boy is fleetingly glimpsed in that scene–and if I’m right, that’s an especially affecting touch.) Cooper and Nelson are given some ripe Gordon Gekko-type lines to recite, which sound especially luscious when delivered with their thick Texas accents, even though both are basically playing caricatures. And the moments between Barnes and Goff on the one hand, and Barnes and Whiting on the other, are riveting simply because the actors savor them. But generally even the best of the performers here are hobbled by the fact that their characters are little more than pieces in a cinematic chess game that values the cleverness of their moves more than creating any emotional connection with them as individuals. Barnes is given a scene with his son (Max Minghella), but it’s isolated and perfunctory. Holiday is continuously belittled by his alcoholic father (William Charles Mitchell), who apparently sees him as a sell-out, but their moments together aren’t very revealing, partially because Wright plays the younger man in so tight-lipped, cold a fashion that he comes across as virtually passionless. And as usual, the Middle Eastern scenes–both those in the emirate and those involving Wasim–seem stilted, as though the milieu was being seen from the outside–which, of course, it is. Coming off best is Damon, both because he fits the part of the callow, naive, rather stiff Woodman so perfectly, but also because we experience along with him the tragedy of his son’s death, and he’s playing against Peet, who’s simply wonderful as his tortured wife.

The other major problem with the picture is that its message seems pretty simplistic. All the intricacies and sleights of hand eventually come down to the lesson that the profit motive drives U.S. policy in the Middle East, leading the government to foster instability there in order to keep the locals weak and dependent on American largesse and to use every weapon, even betrayal, to succeed; and to the moral that such policies of selfishness and greed inevitably give rise to resistance, and that violence only breeds more violence. It’s not that these notions aren’t true; but even those viewers inclined to agree with them may feel that after all the concentration this film demands, what it delivers turns out to be awfully predictable. (The literally explosive double finale that brings all the threads together, moreover, proves–disappointingly–to be based on the sort of coincidence that’s the stuff of melodrama, however slickly staged.)

“Syriana” has an impressively authentic look, thanks to Dan Weil’s solid production design and the spiffy work of cinematographer Robert Elswit in a wide variety of locations, and the score by the prolific Alexandre Desplat–if not among his best–is still effectively supportive. But the picture wants to engender a sense of political outrage and is more likely to cause, at most, a nod of agreement and a sense of resigned indignation. Still, among the great mass of Hollywood movies that aim at nothing but cheap tears and even cheaper guffaws, its higher ambition is enough to make it mildly recommendable.