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The film explores the connections between the Ghanaian company who finds the oil field, the small Texas oil company who drills, the Wall Street private equity partners who invest, and the Ghanaian government officials who manage the contracts. The glitch, depending on your seat, comes when Ghanaian leadership changes, the justice department is called in to investigate allegations of corruption on the part of the U.S. firm and credit contracts due to the financial crisis.

Boynton also looks at the psychological motivations for the individual players, all striving to be masters of the universe, or in West African parlance, "big men." Rolling Stone spoke with Boynton about her cautious optimism for Ghana, the legacy of Milton Friedman and working with Brad Pitt and Sebastian Junger.

The fundamental question in the movie is who gets what out of the deal and so then the question is whom is pitted against whom in the deal. You’ve got private capital – Wall Street – you’ve got the oil company, you’ve got governments and you’ve got the people. And those are the principal entities looking to get a piece of the pie.