Friday
10Oct2008
Movie Review - 'Body of Lies'
Friday, October 10, 2008 at 12:11AM | Body of Lies
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, and Mark Strong  |
The first time I remember seeing somewhat believable spy
satellites in movies was Enemy of the State, directed by Tony Scott.
Now his older and more revered brother,
Ridley,
uses a more believable variation of that technology to follow CIA agent Roger
Ferris (Leonardo
DiCaprio) through scorching equatorial deserts in
Body of Lies. Ironically, in the first film, the spying is to know too much, while in Body of Lies, too little is known in spite of it. The film is based on a novel by
David Ignatius
- adapted for the screen by The Departed screenwriter
William
Monahan - about a search for a high-ranking terrorist that involves
the incompatible methods of the intelligence communities of the United States
and Jordan.Ferris is on the ground doing the dirty work of Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), who sits in air conditioned darkness, watching his field agent from the steely confines of Langley, Virginia. He has his own ideas on how Ferris should conduct his search, and he's almost always wrong. Hoffman is not malevolent, however; there's a perception from the trailers that he might be setting Ferris up to fail, but that's not the reality. It's simply that the thick layers of bureaucracy in the military-industrial complex have less informed superiors calling the shots from 6,000 miles away, or at least that's what Body of Lies is trying to illustrate.
Contrasting that approach is the Jordanian intelligence community, which has one undeniable chief: Hani (Mark Strong). Hani is slick and sleek, resembling an asp in an Italian suit. He exudes superiority and an English boarding school background, and he is not to be trifled with. While Hoffman sits in Langley, Hani handles the security of Jordan personally. They're both after the same man but go about it in radically different ways, although they both are using Ferris as a pawn in some respects.
Ridley Scott has made an intelligent, fast-paced action movie. Those adjectives rarely go together. Dumb and fast-paced can be fun. Intelligent and action are strange bedfellows. But Body of Lies doesn't slow down for you to understand the places and the stakes and the obstacles and all the rest; you're either keeping up or you're left behind.
He mines three fantastic performances, though the best one may surprise you. Mark Strong flat-out deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The role isn't death-defying or anything, but Hani is such a unique character and he's so vital to the success of this movie. And Strong absolutely nails it. That's not to take anything away from Crowe and DiCaprio, two actors who are so much the center of their films that they don't necessarily have to play well with others. Here, they're better together than apart, and each of them has found a different enough voice from their most famous work to keep the performances interesting. Crowe is mischievous and a little out of the loop, while DiCaprio embodies so well the man we envision crawling across the desert searching for water.
There has been plenty of discussion, going back a couple years at least, about whether or not we "need" movies about the Iraq War, 9/11, the war on terror, and on and on. The answer is we "need" them more than we need Pixar movies and romantic comedies, especially the good ones.
Reader Comments (5)
How does its compare to Syriana, for instance? I get the feeling from your review that it's less cynical and less political?
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I wouldn't say it's either, really. But it has loads more action, which makes it easier to watch than Syriana. That was a little dry.
I just checked this movie out the other day. Despite your optimism on this film I can’t really agree… I felt it was rather weak in some ways. Ridley Scott is a genius in some films, but not this one.
I actually hyped it on EverHYPE and gave Body of Lies 69%:
Check it out, http://www.everhype.com/hyper/Michael?X=M645.
If you get on rate me a 5 on that one and request friendship.
Apparently Ridley Scott enjoys working with Russell Crowe; and he likes to make movies that raise international awareness (i'm thinking Blackhawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven)... that's a good thing i'd say