So last night a friend and I hit up the Consolidated Majestic 20 in Silver Spring to see why George Clooney won a Golden Globe for his work in Syriana. The both of us had been looking forward to it; we originally planned on seeing it Tuesday night but neither of us wanted to miss Commander in Chief…good stuff! Hence, our Wednesday night outing.

The movie started off slowly–a lot of things were happening at the same time. There were big-oil corporate meetings, a member of the Saudi Royal Family hosting a party, a commentator/corporate sales rep and his daily life (Matt Damon played the commentator; Amanda Peet was his on-screen wife) and Matt draws the duty of travelling to Spain to cover this party…George Clooney plays a CIA agent, and he was wrapping up a covert arms (weaponry) sale in Tehran, Iran.

I know that all these events are tied together somehow–I was waiting for the “click” to happen. Meanwhile, Matt has a private interview/sales pitch with one of the Saudi Princes at the party. He’s trying to get them to contract his company for a phase of the oil drilling…there’s a snag. At the party, something devastating happens. (see the movie for more…)

So, the Prince ends up awarding the contract to Matt’s company and George is back at Langley reporting on the recent deal in Iran. The big-oil corporate meetings continue . Somehow I’m getting a feeling that Matt, George and big-oil will all wrap up together. I’m excited!

George gets another assignment, this time in Beirut (if I remember right) but he has to meet with Hezbollah to get permission. The last time George was in Beirut, there was a big stink involving Hezbollah and George was lucky to get out alive. He clarifies that the purpose of his visit has nothing to do with Hezbollah–the ayatollah says as long as that is the case, George is welcome in Beirut.

George then meets with his CIA case officer in Beirut to get more information on the op. The target is the same Saudi Royal Prince that Matt made his sales pitch to. After the meeting, George heads back to his hotel room for a rest. Unfortunately, he is ambushed…

And this is where we stop.

Why?

Because the captioning was cut off! To our dismay, my friend and I found out from the movie technician that “for some reason the machine is not reading the captions …”

I left the movie theater feeling robbed, although for a small consolation, I had a complimentary pass for the next movie I wanted to see.

Sigh. Sometimes being deaf has its pitfalls.