Phlogiston

Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, the writer of Traffic, it seems impossible not to compare it to his earlier film. Structurally, there are many many similarities. Multiple parallel plots, from the high and mighty movers and shakers in the oil industry, to the lowliest Pakistani immigrant oil worker in the Gulf, we see how America’s thirst for cheap oil destabilises a region, drives some to acts of terror, and ultimately threaten America itself. Unlike Traffic, I didn’t find myself connecting with the characters on screen as much. Attempts to fill in their human stories with sub-plots concerning their families for the most part failed: Clooney’s relationship with his son, Wright’s alcoholic father—none of these really worked for me. The human stories that worked best for me were Damon’s oil analyst, and the story of the Pakistani oil worker driven to Islamic fundamentalism.

To me, at least, this is a fine film, clever, interesting, and informative, but it doesn’t quite find the balance between drama and documentary. It wants to be a drama, but it is so desperate to inform the viewer of the realities of the oil industry that it feels like it is constantly slipping into docudrama, and as such in failing to be either it loses something. It is a good film, and I’d encourage anyone to watch it, but it never matches the kind of storytelling he achieved in Traffic.