A negative review from VARIETY...

Body of Lies
By TODD MCCARTHY

Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe star in Ridley Scott's 'Body of Lies.'

A Warner Bros. release of a Scott Free/De Line production. Produced by Ridley Scott, Donald De Line. Executive producers, Michael Costigan, Charles J.D. Schlissel. Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay, William Monahan, based on the novel by David Ignatius.

Roger Ferris - Leonardo DiCaprio
Ed Hoffman - Russell Crowe
Hani Salaam - Mark Strong
Aisha - Golshifteh Farahani
Bassam - Oscar Isaac
Al-Saleem - Alon Aboutboul
Garland - Simon McBurney
Skip - Vince Colosimo
Omar Sadiki - Ali Suliman
Nizar - Mehdi Nebbou
Holiday - Michael Gaston
Mustafa Karami - Kais Nashif
Marwan - Jameel Khoury
Aisha's Sister Cala - Lubna Azabal


Neither the location-based verisimilitude of Ridley Scott's shooting style nor the estimable Middle East expertise of source-material author David Ignatius can disguise "Body of Lies" as anything other than the contrived phony-baloney it is. Coming on like an inside account of CIA operations against jihad-minded terrorists, pic shows its true colors by featuring a shootout, chase or big explosion every 10 minutes or so, on its way to a climax so conventional it would have been at home in a 1940s Warner Bros. melodrama. Despite the Iraq War hovering in the background, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe leading the charge in a high-octane would-be thriller should produce solid mainstream B.O. worldwide.

Due to Scott's clear interest in West vs. Arab conflict, explored in both "Black Hawk Down" and "Kingdom of Heaven," novelist and journalist Ignatius' intimate knowledge of the scene and scenarist William Monahan's proven skill with complicated narratives and pungent dialogue, there was reason here to hope for something more than an updated companion piece to Ridley's brother Tony's 2001 espionage meller "Spy Game."

The setup certainly has merit. A dedicated Arabist and fluent in the language, rough-and-tumble CIA op Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) works the treacherous streets of the Middle East, be it in Iraq, Jordan or Syria, trying to recruit help, infiltrate cells and uncover plots against steep odds. His boss back in Langley, Ed Hoffman (Crowe), is a blunt realist who admits that a democracy is "an easy target" and that it wouldn't be all that hard to bring Western civilization down.

Better yet, the story hinges on an ingenious plot hatched by Ferris to flush out a shadowy master terrorist who's embarked upon a series of devastating bombings against civilian targets but never steps forward to take credit: Ferris creates an entirely fictitious rival terror organization whose atrocities and unknown leader are designed to force the real perpetrator far enough into the open for apprehension.

Sounds like a can't-miss premise. But Scott and Monahan, who teamed on "Kingdom of Heaven," take a mostly formulaic approach that becomes more disappointing as the yarn unwinds, right up to the cornball denouement that is everything that even some internal dialogue had promised it wouldn't be.

Working in similar rugged-modern-adventurer mode as he did in "Blood Diamond," DiCaprio frequently gets roughed up and bloodied, to the point where his character even seems to like it. As he tries to ferret out a potential informant in the Iraqi desert or to run surveillance on a terrorist safe house in Amman, Ferris is observed by Hoffman via crisp overhead images provided by high-flying drones. Given the technology at hand, it seems surprising the CIA doesn't enjoy a higher success rate than it appears to.

But as Hoffman himself best articulates, terrorists can flourish by going no-tech, relying on quiet person-to-person communications. This is where Ferris proves invaluable, at least to the extent that Hoffman permits him to function on his own terms.

Conflict between Ferris' micro approach and Hoffman's concern for the macro surfaces in their respective dealings with Jordanian intelligence chief Hani Salaam (Mark Strong). An urbane and elegant sophisticate, Hani chafes at Hoffman's crudeness but quickly recognizes Ferris' smarts and agrees to cooperate with his efforts to nail Islamist mastermind Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul). Scenes between Ferris and Hani possess a heightened vibrance stemming from two sharp, skillful men recognizing their respective qualities and working out a mutually beneficial modus operandi.

At one point some nasty wounds land Ferris in the hospital, where he is ministered to by lovely nurse Aisha (Iranian thesp Golshifteh Farahani). Pic is attentive to the extreme cultural difficulties of even the most modest social exchanges between an American man and a Muslim woman under such circumstances; men glare at them when they share tea at a public cafe, and Aisha's conservative sister (Lubna Azabal) gives Ferris an earful when he comes for lunch.

Despite the sociopolitical points of interest and even insight, however, the scenario begins to feel contorted and ultimately poisoned by its adherence to movie conceits rather than real-world terms; the film capitulates to what it's thought audiences want from Hollywood action cinema, rather than going its own original way with material that could have been far more absorbing and provocative. No matter how credible and realistic the urban and countryside scenes may look (many Morocco locations doubled for the numerous Middle Eastern locales represented), what takes place in them comes off as increasingly hokey and concocted. In the end, "Body of Lies" infuses the thriller format with hot modern issues less successfully than did last year's "The Kingdom."

DiCaprio throws himself into the middle of dangerous doings much as he did in "Blood Diamond" and "The Departed," that is to say with grit, determination and an underlying need to prove something. Strong makes a marked impression as the cultivated Jordanian spy boss, Farahani brings spirit to a standard role and Simon McBurney adds another eccentric to his resume as a nerdy computer genius.

And then there's Russell Crowe. Asked by Scott to put on 50 pounds for the role of the Cofer Black-like CIA figure, the actor has clearly obliged, to the point where he now looks like a candidate to succeed the late, great JT Walsh as a specialist in beefy, menacing supporting characters. Sporting cropped salt-and-pepper hair and an Arkansas accent, Crowe literally phones this one in -- as perhaps half his performance is spent speaking by cell phone to DiCaprio overseas; the other half has him peering over reading glasses to make his point. It would be nice to see this great actor toughen up again and take on some more challenging roles.

Tech qualities are on a par with Scott's usual high standards, with the director's longtime camera operator-second unit director and cameraman Alexander Witt making his debut as a full d.p.

More than one option(Person) Alon Abutbul
(Person) Alon Aboutboul
More than one option(Film) Spy Game
(Tv) Spy Game
More than one option(Film) The Kingdom
1995 - Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, Lars von Trier
(Film) Happy Feet
(Film) The Kingdom
2007 - Jamie Foxx, Peter Berg
(Tv) Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital
Camera (Technicolor, Arri widescreen), Alexander Witt; editor, Pietro Scalia; music, Marc Streitenfeld; production designer, Arthur Max; supervising art director, Marco Trentini; supervising art directors (Washington, D.C.), Peter Hampton, Charley Beal; art directors, Alexandro M. Santucci, Rob Cowper, Hinju Kim (Washington, D.C.); set designers, Alex McCarroll, Rich Romig (Washington, D.C.); set decorators, Sonja Klaus, Nancy Nye (Washington, D.C.); costume designer, Janty Yates; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Richard Van Dyke; supervising sound editors, Per Hallberg, Karen Baker Landers; re-recording mixers, Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer; visual effects supervisor, Sheena Duggal; visual effects, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Invisible Effects; special effects supervisor, Paul Corbould; stunt coordinator, G.A. Aguilar; assistant director, Peter Kohn; casting, Avy Kaufman, Jina Jay. Reviewed at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Oct. 1, 2008. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 129 MIN.
(English, Arabic dialogue)

A positive review from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER...

By Kirk Honeycutt
Oct 2, 2008

"Body of Lies"
Opens: Friday, Oct. 10 (Warner Bros.)

If Ridley Scott gave us a new kind of war movie with "Black Hawk Down," where an army unit functioning in total chaos in a hostile city became a collective protagonist, he now engineers a new kind of spy thriller in "Body of Lies."

Here is a landscape of deserved paranoia and horrific violence, of countless life-or-death scenarios, total distrust of enemies and allies alike and open contempt for anything American -- again not undeserved. It may not be as much fun as old spy movies starring Cary Grant or more recent entertainments such as "Spy Game," directed by Ridley's brother Tony, but it feels all too accurate.

To be sure, the film retains familiar genre elements: It has double crosses and plot twists, a romance -- an improbable one -- chases, gunfights and last-minute rescues. But the fiction is rooted in a Middle Eastern reality that is always grim and unsettling. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe will certainly bring out their admirers, but how the action-thriller crowd will react to such a disturbing environment is a tough call.
William Monahan's tough-minded screenplay, based on a novel by journalist David Ignatius, who has covered the CIA and Middle East, sees no action or impulse as heroic. It acknowledges bravery, but this bravery is sometimes foolish and its goals often murky and counterproductive.

DiCaprio's Roger Ferris is the angry and often frantic man on the ground in the war on terror in Iraq and Jordan. Back in the U.S., Crowe's arrogant CIA veteran Ed Hoffman hovers over laptops and tracks ground movements half a world away via spy satellites. Hoffman, who would sacrifice his mother to single-handedly win the war on terror, easily earns Ferris' enmity, but Ferris needs his eyes and strategies.

In trying to flush a ruthless terrorist (Alon Aboutboul) out of hiding, the uneasy duo encounters a silky and charismatic head of Jordanian intelligence (British actor Mark Strong), an often bewildered local guide (Oscar Isaac), a computer whiz (Simon McBurney), a hapless pawn (Ali Suliman) and a nurse (Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani).

Ferris' tentative romance with the nurse is the film's most awkward device. Any relationship between a Muslim woman and American passing through Amman, Jordan, would be most unlikely in that society. Even so, the relationship is a naked stratagem to create a nearly fatal emotional attachment for the spy.

Scott pushes the film at breakneck speed. He switches points of view rapidly from Ferris in treacherous terrain to Hoffman multitasking on the phone while dealing with his family and suburban life to overhead camera angles of the Predator tracking system. Urgency fills the characters' every waking moment. Rules of the day are established with primacy given to swift execution by a colleague if anyone is likely to fall into enemy hands and suffer horrifying torture.

What motivates Ferris is never clear, and this is the film's greatest weakness. With Hoffman running operations behind his back, he has no safety net, even an illusory one. He is a little too much of a white knight in this dark world, but DiCaprio gives the role plenty of brio, while Crowe -- who reportedly gained 50 pounds to play the morally and physically sloven office spook -- is agreeably obnoxious.

As usual with a Ridley Scott production, tech credits are superb.

Production: Scott Free Prods., De Line Pictures.
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac, Simon McBurney, Ali Suliman, Alon Aboutboul.
Director: Ridley Scott.
Screenwriter: William Monahan.
Based on the novel by: David Ignatius.
Producers: Donald De Line, Ridley Scott.
Executive producers: Michael Costigan, Charles J.D. Schlissel.
Director of photography: Alexander Witt.
Production designer: Arthur Max.
Music: Marc Streitenfeld.
Costume designer: Janty Yates.
Editor: Pietro Scalia.
Rated R, 128 minutes.

A C- review from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY by Owen Gleiberman...

Body of Lies is a terrible title for a globe-trotting espionage drama — it sounds more like a cable-ready ''erotic'' thriller starring Colin Farrell and Madonna. That tacky and meaningless title is a tip-off; it lets us know just how desperate the filmmakers are to please. Body of Lies has a lot of big, important explosions (whole buildings get blown up), plus the usual cars-barreling-through- the-Third-World-bazaar set pieces and sky-track surveillance shots that invite us to suck in our breath at the awesome telescopic reach of the CIA's omnipresent eye. Yet most of this just seems, you know, so three years ago, so Bourne again. The director, that veteran big-budget action painter Ridley Scott, huffs and puffs to give a topical undercover scenario the patina of relevance. Really, though, he's fighting the last war — and I don't mean Iraq or Afghanistan, which Scott knows all too well are losers at the box office. I mean the Cold War. Working from a screenplay by William Monahan (The Departed), which is based on a David Ignatius novel, Scott takes rusty '80s clichés from the days when we were playing nuclear chicken with Russia and retrofits them to the post-9/11 world. He exposes how weary those old spy tropes really are. Leonardo DiCaprio, with a snaky undergrowth of beard that makes him look like a mandarin Cheshire cat, plays Roger Ferris, a CIA operative who has come as close as anyone in the agency to penetrating the enigmatic thicket of loyalties within the Middle East. Ferris speaks Arabic, and he knows that in the faceless world of international terror, information is king. He is also patched, more or less permanently, into the laptop of Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), a middle-aged CIA veteran who now sits around at home in the suburbs, or in his Langley, Va., office, tracking Ferris' movements on a spiffy wall-size monitor. The whole world is at his fingertips, which may be why Hoffman barely bothers to get out of his armchair. Crowe, with a graying bristle cut and 50 added pounds, gives Hoffman a smug drawl, and he spends the movie uttering each line in the same folksy-flat It's all business, son! voice and peering, again and again, over the top of his officious spectacles. He seems to be phoning in his performance on purpose, which doesn't make it any less rote. Ferris and Hoffman are out to entrap the mysterious jihadist leader Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), a bin Laden figure who has left a trail of bombings and videotapes. In Jordan, Ferris makes contact with Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), the head of the country's General Intelligence Department, which primes us for some seriously knotty intrigue. You don't, after all, catch America's most wanted terrorist mastermind by looking him up in the Amman yellow pages. Ferris uses Hani to connect with an informer, who will penetrate a local safe house. But the idea that Al-Saleem could, in fact, be nabbed through a safe house, or that a stray jihadist who ''turned'' could be counted on to expose him, is like a scenario left over from the Brezhnev era, or maybe the age of Casablanca. Mark Strong, the debonair British actor who plays Hani (he's like a taller, more insinuating Andy Garcia), does indeed have glittering hints of Old Hollywood malice pouring through his courtly charm. DiCaprio, by contrast, seems trapped—in that baby face, in his increasing inability to create even a dash of subtext. Ferris is attracted to an Iranian nurse, and nothing the star does makes this more than a laughably generic romance. Maybe it's just the role, but the gifted DiCaprio is starting to come off as a less-than-inspired actor. His heart needs to catch fire again.

After a dead-dull first hour, the film arrives at its one promising twist: Ferris and Hoffman try to flush out Al-Saleem by inventing a fake rival terrorist, whose existence will lure him into the open. This plot should have been the whole film; had it been executed convincingly, we might have relaxed into the hokey, halfway plausible notion of defeating a terrorist by mimicking what he does. Body of Lies has the action scenes that may, by now, be the only way to sell a ''political'' thriller. There's a helicopter chase done in Scott's technological blam-blam style, and a torture finale staged in an icky, exploitative way. Yet the movie skirts the most common-sense realities of how dispersed, and concealed, our enemies really are. That makes it not just far-fetched but monotonous. C–

A **1/2 review from Christy Lemire in the ASSOCIATED PRESS...

"Rendition." "Redacted." "The Kingdom." "In the Valley of Elah." "Lions for Lambs."

They're all movies about the war on terror that nobody has wanted to see, either because the topic is too daunting or too much of a downer, or it's simply too soon after 9-11.

Soon, you'll be able to add "Body of Lies" to that list, even though it's probably the most worthwhile and least preachy of the bunch.

The pieces would all seem to be in place for a compelling take on this complex topic: strong work from acting heavyweights Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio; an intricate script from William Monahan, an Academy Award winner for "The Departed"; and the virtuoso visual styling of director Ridley Scott.

Of course, it looks great as it bounces breathlessly between Iraq and Jordan, Qatar and the Netherlands, Dubai and the Virginia suburbs; Scott seamlessly blends footage shot by overhead drones with intense, paranoid sequences from the cramped streets below. And yet the result, with its many explosions and shootouts, too often feels like a generic action picture, albeit one with weightier stuff on its mind. It's as if Scott & Co. felt they needed to make the material palatable to the widest possible audience by turning it into a familiar genre picture, rather than sticking to their guns and making, well, "Syriana."

Based on the novel of the same name by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, whose knowledge of the subject matter would seem to be unimpeachable, "Body of Lies" follows undercover CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio), who's trying to ferret out the mastermind behind a series of anonymous bombings around the world. At the same time, Ferris' boss, Ed Hoffman (Crowe), is running surveillance and plotting strategy from home back in the United States with the help of his ever-present cell-phone headset and laptop.

But despite their shared goals and mutual dependence, Ferris and Hoffman often end up miscommunicating and undermining each other. This becomes especially true when Ferris tries to chat up the smooth Jordanian intelligence chief (Mark Strong, who nearly steals the whole movie), a man who holds Hoffman in disdain and has been reluctant to aid in the CIA's efforts. Strong's character, Hani, is impeccably dressed and respectful - he repeatedly refers to Ferris as "My dear," which seems to be more of a threat than a term of endearment - but that classy demeanour only makes his dark side more frightening.

Somehow, with all his copious free time, Ferris manages to romance Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani), a pretty, soft-spoken nurse who treats his wounds when he gets particularly banged up during a chase in Amman. It's obvious what the purpose of the relationship is - it's a device meant to flesh out Ferris and reveal whatever glimmers of humanity he may have left in this deadly world - but it feels distractingly wedged-in. It's also a way to inject a rare female figure, but her presence seems like something out of an old-fashioned war movie, so you know it's only a matter of time before she winds up in some sort of contrived danger, and in need of rescue.

Far more intriguing, and believable, is the relationship between Ferris and Hoffman. It's a joy to watch DiCaprio and Crowe verbally sparring, even though they infrequently share the same space: Most of their characters' communication takes place over the phone. DiCaprio is high-strung and arrogant; Crowe is low-key and arrogant and, in typically Method fashion, he put on 50 pounds for the part, and added a southern drawl. This is his fourth film with Scott, following "Gladiator," "A Good Year" and "American Gangster."

Each character thinks that what he's doing is the right course for the greater good. But when you break down "Body of Lies" to its most fundamental elements, it's really about disagreeing with your boss. Hoffman gives Ferris an assignment, Ferris carries it out how he sees fit, they clash, then they start all over again.

It's "Office Space" with more carnage, "9 to 5" where peril is present 24-7. Maybe this topic is relatable after all.

Two and a half stars out of four.

A ** review from SLANT...

by Nick Schager
Posted: October 9, 2008


Body of Lies's shrewdest commentary on the ongoing War on Terror involves the sight of CIA operative Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) getting shot at and smacked upside the head in various Middle Eastern locales while his U.S.-based boss, portly Southerner Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), delivers slightly condescending orders ("My boy…") over the phone as he shuffles his son to and from the bathroom and takes his daughter to soccer games. The disconnect between those orchestrating and carrying out military operations is the most sound facet of Ridley Scott's film, which (written by William Monahan, from a novel by Washington Post reporter David Ignatius) roots itself in the notion that our anti-terrorist endeavors in sandy, remote parts of the world are intrinsically frustrated by the inability of hard-nosed bureaucrats to comprehend the finesse, subtlety and patience necessitated by this new form of combat. Like last year's more dim-witted (if also more kinetic) The Kingdom, however, Scott's latest is first and foremost beholden to dull thriller conventions, the majority of which are staged with minimal flair and, worse still, cut off any further political commentary at the knees—unless, that is, one considers revelatory the fact that espionage involves deception.

In Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Syria, Ferris works to uncover the location of Osama Bin Laden stand-in Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), a mastermind whose success at pulling off European marketplace bombings confirms Hoffman's belief—espoused during a clunky, ideology-establishing intro speech—that "we are an easy target." Hoffman immerses himself in on-the-ground missions through phones and hi-res video imagery from overhead drones, his techno-surveillance as detached as Ferris's hand-to-hand combat is violently engaged. Ferris is Hoffman's barely compliant pawn, instructed to betray contacts at his boss's behest even when such a strategy is clearly shortsighted. Yet whereas Monahan's script positions this dynamic as a sharp censure of the current administration's operational methods, it never finds a way to use it for genre-excitement purposes. This is partly because Scott's set pieces are competent in execution but bland in conception, but it's also because, even though Hoffman's clandestine, shady motives lead Ferris into numerous skirmishes and shootouts, the film never generates anything more than stock back-and-forth friction between the two men. Ferris is being manipulated by distant forces, but Body of Lies never convincingly posits real danger to its hero from either Hoffman or Middle Eastern gunmen, casting him as an often-bruised but never beaten beacon of American virtue, which turns any potential slam-bang sequences to mush.

Thus, while action-adventure conventions take precedence over socio-political analysis, visceral kicks are in short supply, a situation that throws the film's tendencies toward stale misdirection and goofy melodrama into sharp relief. As its title implies, everyone is carrying out a ruse, but as with David Mamet's work, the knowledge that everything is untrustworthy transforms the proceedings into a waiting game for eventual bombshells, which here turn out to be as predictable and tired as Scott's flippant employment of hot-topic iconography (terrorist video manifestos, kneeling men in hoods). Aside from ditching the South African accent, DiCaprio reprises his Blood Diamond performance, all intense, frantic comportment and scant genuine inner life. Crowe, on the other hand, exudes a sinister strain of nonchalant ****y menace, even as he's confined to dramatically inert scenes that simply require chatting on the phone from suburbia. Slightly more impactful is Mark Strong as Hani, a suave, dapper Jordanian intelligence bigwig with whom Ferris and Hoffman conspire. Yet despite insisting that Ferris always tell him the truth, Hani soon proves merely another of the script's devices of deception, a narrative contrivance almost as phony as the relationship between Ferris and a fetching Muslim nurse that, leading to a preposterous Hollywood finale and coda, reveals Body of Lies to itself be a lie.

A *** review from Roger Ebert...

If you take a step back from the realistic locations and terse dialogue, Ridley Scott's "Body of Lies" is a James Bond plot inserted into today's headlines. The film wants to be persuasive in its expertise about modern spycraft, terrorism, the CIA and Middle East politics. But its hero is a lone ranger who operates in three countries, single-handedly creates a fictitious terrorist organization, and survives explosions, gunfights, and brutal torture. Oh, and he falls in love with a local beauty. And of course he speaks Arabic well enough to pass for a local.

This is Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), who seems to operate as a self-directed freelance in the war against a deadly terrorist organization (obviously a double for al-Qaeda). His brainstorm is to fabricate a rival terrorist organization out of thin air, fabricate a fictitious leader, create a convincing evidence trail and use it to smoke out Al Saleem, the secretive leader of the real terrorists (a surrogate for Osama bin Laden). Why will Al Saleem risk everything to come out of hiding? Jealousy, I think. Guarding his turf.

I can imagine a similar story as told by John Le Carre, even right down to the local beauty. Some of the characters seem worthy of Le Carre, especially Hoffman (Russell Crowe), Ferris' CIA handler, and Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), the brilliant and urbane head of Jordanian security. But Le Carre would never be guilty of such preposterous thriller-style action. Here we have a spy who doesn't come in from the cold, crossed with Jason Bourne.

The most intriguing aspect of Ferris' activities is his growing disillusionment with them. He feels one local comrade has been abandoned to face a certain death, and after he sets up an innocent architect to unwittingly play the head of the fictitious terrorist agency, he single-handedly tries to save his life from an inevitable attack. That Ferris survives this man's fate is highly unlikely. And it leads to a situation where his own life is saved by the last-second arrival of the cavalry.

The movie depends on two electronic wonderments. One is the ability of Ferris to maintain instant, effortless, cell phone contact with Hoffman, back in Washington. Wearing one of those ear-mounted devices, he seems to keep up a running conversation with his boss, even during perilous situations (his boss is often distracted by taking care of his kids).

The other wonderment is aerial surveillance so precise it can see a particular man walking down a street. The surveillance POV is so stable, it's hard to believe it originates from a fast-moving high-altitude spy plane. In discussing Ridley Scott's superior "Black Hawk Down" (2002), I questioned the infra-red technology that allowed distant commanders to monitor troop movements on the ground. Many readers informed me that was based on fact. Perhaps the astonishing images in "Body of Lies" are accurate; if so, it's only another step to locating bin Laden with an aerial eyeball scan.

Ferris' romance in Aaman involves a pretty nurse named Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani), who cares for him after he nearly dies in a blast. (One nice touch: A surgeon removes something from his arm and explains: "Bone fragment. Not yours.") The movie is realistic in showing a Muslim woman's difficulties in dating a Westerner; spying eyes are everywhere. It is less realistic in establishing why they are willing to take such a risk, since they're allowed no meaningful conversations to create their relationship. Aisha obviously exists as a convenience of the plot and to set up the film's overwhelmingly unlikely conclusion.

The acting is convincing. DiCaprio makes Ferris almost believable in the midst of absurdities; the screenplay by William Monahan, based on the novel by David Ignatius, portrays him as a man who grows to reject the Iraq war and the role of the CIA in it. Crowe, who gained 50 pounds for his part (always dangerous for a beer drinker), is a remorselessly logical CIA operative. I particularly admired the work of Mark Strong as the suave Jordanian intelligence chief, who likes little cigars, shady nightclubs and pretty women, but is absolutely in command of his job.

The bottom line: "Body of Lies" contains enough you can believe, or almost believe, that you wish so much of it weren't sensationally implausible. No one man can withstand such physical ordeals as Ferris undergoes in this film, and I didn't even mention the attack by a pack of possibly rabid dogs. Increasing numbers of thrillers seem to center on heroes who are masochists surrounded by sadists, and I'm growing weary of the horror! Oh, the horror!

As even the best reviews for this movie are just OK and it is being treated more as an action movie than a piece of serious, political cinema I think it can be safely removed from anyone's Oscar predictions... actually I hadn't seen it on anyone's recent predictions. It may get in for some tech noms but the big awards seem out of its grasp.

quote:

Originally posted by pacinofan:
As even the best reviews for this movie are just OK and it is being treated more as an action movie than a piece of serious, political cinema I think it can be safely removed from anyone's Oscar predictions... actually I hadn't seen it on anyone's recent predictions. It may get in for some tech noms but the big awards seem out of its grasp.

I once dared having Ridley Scott in Director and Monahan's script in Adapted back in March; after seeing the trailer though, I threw those out. Right now, I'm thinking Editing or sound nominations. Plain and simple.

A negative review from the NEW YORK TIMES...

Big Stars Wielding an Array of Accents, Fighting the War on Terrorism

By A. O. SCOTT
Published: October 10, 2008

Ridley Scott’s new movie, “Body of Lies,” raises a potentially disturbing question. If terrorism has become boring, does that mean the terrorists have won? Or, conversely, is the grinding tedium of this film good news for our side, evidence of the awesome might of Western popular culture, which can turn even the most intransigent and bloodthirsty real-world villains into fodder for busy, contrived and lifeless action thrillers?

The second answer seems more plausible, but there are other puzzles in “Body of Lies” that are not so easily solved and that may distract from sober contemplation of geopolitical pseudorealities. Such as: what exactly is going on with Leonardo DiCaprio’s accent, or Russell Crowe’s body mass index? Mr. DiCaprio, playing a high-strung C.I.A. operative named Roger Ferris, once again shows his commitment to full employment for dialect coaches, following the mock-Afrikaans of “Blood Diamond” and the South Boston braying of “The Departed” with some good-old-boy inflections that are helpfully identified by Mr. Crowe’s character as originating in North Carolina.

Mr. Crowe, meanwhile, plays Ferris’s supervisor, Ed Hoffman, who lives somewhere around Washington and has no specified regional background to explain his odd little drawl. At times Mr. Crowe, showing the linguistic chameleonism that is the birthright of every Australian actor, spits out his words with an emphatic twanginess that suggests, if not George W. Bush himself, then perhaps Jon Stewart impersonating Mr. Bush. It’s possible that this resemblance is meant to imply a parallel between the president and Hoffman, who is immune to self-doubt and allergic to second thoughts about the righteousness of his actions.

And also, it appears, to exercise (unlike the president). With an unusual display of impish delight, Mr. Crowe throws himself into the physicality of his character, a schlubby, tubby suburban dad whose near-parodic commitment to domestic routine contrasts amusingly with his professional fanaticism. Using a hands-free cellphone, Hoffman orchestrates elaborate schemes and double-crosses while going about his daily paterfamilias business: loading his kids into the minivan, helping his young son in the bathroom and tearing open a bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers on the sidelines of his daughter’s soccer game.

On the phone, and in his occasional surprise visits to Ferris in the field, Hoffman is fighting a war whose terms he lays out in a few set-piece speeches. The gist is that no one is innocent and that the ends justify the means. Deceit, torture, the sacrifice of non-American lives — all is permissible in the fight against a shadowy superjihadist named Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), head of a network carrying out suicide attacks around Europe. The contradictions and unintended consequences of Hoffman’s tactics are borne by Ferris, who finds his credibility undermined, his friends and colleagues at risk and his life in danger.

All of which would be fine if “Body of Lies” — with a screenplay by William Monahan (“The Departed”) and based on a novel by David Ignatius, a columnist at The Washington Post — were clearer about its themes or its plot. As it is, the movie is a hodgepodge of borrowings and half-cooked ideas, flung together into a feverishly edited jet-setting exercise in purposeless intensity. Place names flash onto the screen — Amman! Amsterdam! Langley! — and shiny black S.U.V.’s and Mercedes sedans screech through teeming streets or kick up dust clouds on empty desert roads. From time to time an orange fireball erupts, and everything shows up on the satellite surveillance screens back at headquarters.

In Jordan, Ferris flirts with Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani), an Iranian refugee who works as a nurse and who has even less of an organic relation to the narrative than poor Vera Farmiga did in “The Departed.” The dramatic — I daresay the erotic — center of “Body of Lies” is an all-male triangle involving Ferris, Hoffman and Hani (Mark Strong), the head of Jordanian intelligence. Mr. Strong, also seen in the similar and superior “Syriana,” is a marvel of exotic suavity and cool insinuation. Hani calls Ferris “my dear” and may be more sincere in his affection than the ideologically driven Hoffman, who refers to his younger colleague more generically as “buddy.”

If the psychological tensions linking these three were allowed time and space to develop, “Body of Lies” might have been a more surprising and interesting specimen of its genre. Instead, it throws out a few gestures toward topicality — an opening quote from the W. H. Auden poem that flew around the Internet just after 9/11; glances toward Gitmo and the Green Zone; an awkward dinner-table spat about American foreign policy — without saying much of anything. Mr. Scott’s professionalism is, as ever, present in every frame and scene, but this time it seems singularly untethered from anything like zeal, conviction or even curiosity.



“Body of Lies” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has swearing and graphic violence.

A ** review from Lou Lumenick in the NEW YORK POST...

WE'RE shocked - shocked! - to learn that the CIA is not to be trusted, the only and not exactly new revelation in Ridley Scott's bombastic Middle Eastern thriller "Body of Lies."

As embodied by Russell Crowe - who reportedly gained 50 pounds for what amounts to an unofficial Bill Clinton impression as head of the agency's Mideast desk - the CIA is constantly double-crossing its allies and even its employees.

Those betrayed include the agency's improbably idealistic No. 1 agent in the area.

Because he's played by the top-billed Leonardo DiCaprio, it's a pretty good assumption he's going to survive with little lasting damage, except possibly a pair of missing fingernails.

This is more than you can say for some of the people he works with in a movie filled with stuff blowing up at very regular intervals. Call it terrorist porn, or "Syriana" for dummies.

For all the convolutions in the script by William Monahan ("The Departed"), based on a novel by David Ignatius, the story is really quite simple, if not downright simple-minded.

To draw an Islamic terrorist (Alon Aboutboul) responsible for a string of European bombings out of hiding, DiCaprio's Roger Ferris creates a fake terrorist cell to stage a fake bombing of an American target.

This requires framing an innocent Saudi architect as the group's leader and deceiving Jordan's courtly intelligence chief (an entertaining Mark Strong), who has been assisting the none-too-trustworthy Americans to track the terrorist.

When Roger starts dating a Palestinian nurse (Golshifteh Farahani) who pulls bone fragments (not his) out of Roger's wounds, her presence fairly screams "hostage."

If Roger is as smart as we're told he is, then why does he constantly seem to be surprised by the CIA's double dealings? Why does he leave people open to grave danger?

The still-boyish DiCaprio, who sports a North Carolina accent and a beard, basically lacks the gravitas for the role, just as he did in the similarly outraged "Blood Diamond." There's a fine line between anger and petulance.

Crowe seems to be having a fine old time in what amounts to a supporting role as Ed Hoffman, chewing scenery and food as he literally phones in most of his performance via a cellular.

Often he's watching Roger in action on a big-screen TV, which is about as exciting for audiences as the most eyeball-glazing visual cliché of 21st-century thrillers, money being transferred on a computer.

"Body of Lies" is being hailed in some quarters as a "new" kind of war thriller. While this glitzy production may attract audiences suffering from battle fatigue, it's nothing of the sort.

Aside from a nifty new way to avoid surveillance in the middle of the desert, there's nothing here we haven't seen in many other movies - including "Spy Game," directed by Scott's brother Tony before 9/11.

A **1/2 review from USA TODAY...

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
Body of Lies is a tautly paced, well-acted espionage thriller with the requisite explosions and action sequences. Still, it ends up leaving the viewer rather cold.
It may have something to do with the glut of films about the war on terror and American involvement in the Middle East. This story, though more involving than last year's The Kingdom or Rendition, doesn't consistently draw us in, despite powerful performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Strong and Russell Crowe and a screenplay by William Monahan (The Departed).

Based on a 2007 novel by Washington Post journalist David Ignatius, Body of Lies blends the believable and the far-fetched and comes off seeming too familiar.

Wise beyond his years and fluent in Arabic, CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) gets a lead on an emerging terrorist bigwig, operating in Jordan. In order to lure the terrorist leader, he has to get the support of his superior, CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (Crowe), who deals with Ferris from a laptop or over the phone from Virginia. The modus operandi and temperaments of the two intelligence agents are radically different, which leads to some combative moments. These are two actors at the top of their games, so their exchanges are a highlight.

Ferris also must win the confidence of the affable but mysterious head of Jordanian intelligence, Hani Salaam (Strong, who also is on screens this week in RocknRolla). The film poses a recognizable spy-thriller dilemma: How much can you trust your alleged allies? And in this case, how much should you listen to your old-school boss, thousands of miles away?

When he's not navigating the complex world of global espionage, Ferris takes time to fall for a Jordanian medical worker (Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani). The romantic subplot feels shoehorned in to keep the film from getting bogged down by chase scenes and firepower. It's as if some studio exec insisted on adding "a little something for the ladies."

The plot occasionally becomes convoluted and murky, but when it trains its focus on matters of treachery and intrigue, Body of Lies is exciting and compelling.

It may do some box office, but this film will not be a contender for any AA category.

The clips I've seen do not in any way interest me. And apparently, they didn't interest the rest of America either, judging from its third place finish this weekend. Just because two big stars are in it, does not make the movie any better. Examples: Righteous Kill & American Gangster

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Agrado,

The trailer for this film didn't interest me at all. But i went ahead and watched it. It was very mediocre. It's your so-so, run-of-the-mill, political/espionage thriller.

It was pretty intense, sure. But there were several predictable moments, including the ending. It was all stuff that we've seen a dozen times before.

DiCaprio was okay. He pretty much ran the entire show. As for Russell Crowe, i don't know why he accepted this role. It didn't really require much. Anyone could've played this role. Dunno why Crowe had to do it.

And as far as films dealing with the Middle East are concerned, i have to admit -- i actually enjoyed "The Kingdom" and "Rendition" more than this one.

I'm not surprised it flopped.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RichterScale,

Okay, what a giant disappointment this movie was... Often incoherent, totally overrought, ridiculous at times, and in the end, just blah, "Body of Lies" left me and it seemed my whole audience silent and a little annoyed.... Crowe was fine but DiCaprio was doing a half assed version of his character in "The Departed" with a bad accent....
Grade: C-

quote:

Originally posted by jbboy:
DiCaprio was doing a half assed version of his character in "The Departed" with a bad accent....

LOL! Yeah, DiCaprio and accents don't go well together. He always sounds ridiculous, especially in "Blood Diamond".

But i'll give him props though, his accent wasn't as distracting in this film.

quote:

Originally posted by jbboy:
Okay, what a giant disappointment this movie was... Often incoherent, totally overrought, ridiculous at times, and in the end, just blah, "Body of Lies" left me and it seemed my whole audience silent and a little annoyed.... Crowe was fine but DiCaprio was doing a half assed version of his character in "The Departed" with a bad accent....
Grade: C-

Compared to the other film with a simular theme, this film is actually doing pretty good at the boxoffice....still running and at $60 mill. Thats about 3 time as much as Rendition, Lions for Lambs and that Tommy Lee and Susan Sarandon film

quote:

Originally posted by Mikead:

quote:

Originally posted by jbboy:
Okay, what a giant disappointment this movie was... Often incoherent, totally overrought, ridiculous at times, and in the end, just blah, "Body of Lies" left me and it seemed my whole audience silent and a little annoyed.... Crowe was fine but DiCaprio was doing a half assed version of his character in "The Departed" with a bad accent....
Grade: C-

Compared to the other film with a simular theme, this film is actually doing pretty good at the boxoffice....still running and at $60 mill. Thats about 3 time as much as Rendition, Lions for Lambs and that Tommy Lee and Susan Sarandon film

This doesn't make Body of Lies any better. They are all FLOPS! F-L-O-P-S!

quote:

Originally posted by Mikead:

quote:

Originally posted by jbboy:
Okay, what a giant disappointment this movie was... Often incoherent, totally overrought, ridiculous at times, and in the end, just blah, "Body of Lies" left me and it seemed my whole audience silent and a little annoyed.... Crowe was fine but DiCaprio was doing a half assed version of his character in "The Departed" with a bad accent....
Grade: C-

Compared to the other film with a simular theme, this film is actually doing pretty good at the boxoffice....still running and at $60 mill. Thats about 3 time as much as Rendition, Lions for Lambs and that Tommy Lee and Susan Sarandon film

That Tommy Lee and Susan Sarandon film for which Tommy Lee got NOMINATED???

And Russell Crowe WON'T BE???

quote:

Originally posted by stevie:

quote:

Originally posted by Mikead:

quote:

Originally posted by jbboy:
Okay, what a giant disappointment this movie was... Often incoherent, totally overrought, ridiculous at times, and in the end, just blah, "Body of Lies" left me and it seemed my whole audience silent and a little annoyed.... Crowe was fine but DiCaprio was doing a half assed version of his character in "The Departed" with a bad accent....
Grade: C-

Compared to the other film with a simular theme, this film is actually doing pretty good at the boxoffice....still running and at $60 mill. Thats about 3 time as much as Rendition, Lions for Lambs and that Tommy Lee and Susan Sarandon film

That Tommy Lee and Susan Sarandon film for which Tommy Lee got NOMINATED???

And Russell Crowe WON'T BE???

So What!!! That and a quarter will get the film....a QUARTER!