Using the same multi-stranded technique as he did for his Oscar-winning screenplay of the drugs drama Traffic, writer/director Stephen Gaghan here weaves the threads of small, apparently barely linked narratives into a giant tapestry, revealing the global oil industry in all its hideous, venal and corrupt glory. The story is so labyrinthine that an adequate description is impossible (and indeed its deliberate complexity will be an irritant to some), but individual plot elements include George Clooney as a worn-out CIA agent involved in arms dealing and assassinations, Matt Damon as a grief-stricken energy analyst and Christopher Plummer as the head of a powerful Washington law firm. These seemingly disparate tales move at a relentless pace and, as a result, the whole picture is sometimes difficult to grasp - again deliberately so. Gaghan's technique is not to convince you that you're following a single set of characters involved in a coherent story, but rather to give you the jittery, exhilarating feeling that you're eavesdropping on conversations you were never meant to hear. It's an approach that makes this a compelling, richly detailed and, in the end, terrifying experience.

The Middle Eastern oil industry is the backdrop of this tense drama, which weaves together numerous story lines. Bennett Holiday is an American lawyer in charge of facilitating a dubious merger of oil companies, while Bryan Woodman, a Switzerland-based energy analyst, experiences both personal tragedy and opportunity during a visit with Arabian royalty. Meanwhile, veteran CIA agent Bob Barnes uncovers an assassination plot with unsettling origins.