Body of Lies: Review By slysnide

I'm not that big of a fan of these Mideast War/Terror/Espionage movies that've been coming out for a while now. They're just not that interesting and all the SFX of the live satellite feeds and jirating camera moves aren't enough to save them.

The plot follows C.I.A. agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) who's in Amman, Jordan attempting to locate a leader of a terrorist sect named Al Saleem (Alon Abutbol) that's threatened a series of attacks throughout Europe and the United States. But Ferris' boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) keeps screwing things up with both his side operations and demands that Ferris can't satisfy due to legitimate reasons that Hoffman refuses to recognize. In the meantime, the head of the Jordanian Intelligence Department Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) develops serious trust issues with Ferris over Hoffman's demands while Al Saleem's threat begins to be realized in both Amsterdam by a bombing, and Amman where his attempts to cover his tracks become more prevalent, and personal to Ferris.

While the film starts out with a semi-quick pace, it starts slowing down once you get the jist of the plot, which is when Roger takes off on his own to investigate Al Saleem, which is where you'd expect the movie to take off, but it doesn't. Instead, the high tech satellite imagery, semi-jirating camera, and quick cuts from Roger's location to Ed's location substitutes for intrigue, and attempts to cover the real talky scenes that you probably aren't as interested in. Once a little over an hour in, the film slows down even more, but in interest, rather than the speed of things, which hurts it more so.

Leonardo DiCaprio was alright in the role of Roger Ferris, constantly bickering with Ed Hoffman on an earpiece exactly like he did with Martin Sheen's character Queenan in "The Departed" (2006), except it's used more here, and less interesting as you already know that Roger's concerns fall on Ed's deaf ears. And in regards to his character of Billy Costigan in that film, there are too many parallels noticed here, in his attitude, worries, and feelings, but with the sense that he's slightly more with the program here than in Departed.

Russell Crowe is actually more of a comic relief type of character as while Roger's carrying out Ed's secret operations and later berating him for screwing them up with his side operations, Ed's just going about his daily business of picking up his young kids from school, going to their soccer games, and spending time at home doing nothing imparticular. It led my friend and I to joke that he was only at home for the sake of examining what American traditions were at stake if the terrorists were to win the war, as he seemed more involved with those activities than Roger's concerns. Plus even when he does go to Jordan to assist Roger in two of about four scenes with them together in the film, he's still not that interested in what Roger's situation is. So overall, he pretty much exemplifies the type of attitude the C.I.A. has about every foreign nation, which is that they look down on them and their problems, and are willing to make their lives worse for the sake of a bigger paycheck.

The two characters however do share in common a severe lack of caring over the amount of pawns they get killed to advance their mediocre operations. And they're mediocre since both of them don't seem to care about Al Saleem being caught as much as they do about getting paid and moving on to the next target, thus making all of their operations seem pointless to them. Unless of course something happens in the United States. Ed of course arranges these things, but Roger allows the pawns to be killed by his lack of coming up with good dialogue to save them, but god forbid if his semi-girlfriend/nurse Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani) gets hurt, despite that she suspects that Roger's not all that truthful with her. So the acting is okay, but nothing amazing from anyone in this.

The special effects were kinda cool, like with the realistic bomb detonations, the live satellite feed, and the breaking of fingers with a hammer, but nothing that amazing or new in any way.

Director Ridley Scott made on alright attempt at making a decent film, but it lost its suspense somewhere in the middle and the climax got more personal than serious as Roger is left worrying over how to save Aisha from Al Saleem himself rather than worrying about how to catch Al Saleem. And that twist on things in and of itself seems bogus since Roger doesn't do much in jeopardizing Al Saleem's plan to the point in which he would expose himself to nab just one C.I.A. agent.

Overall, this was an alright 'B-' movie that needed more suspense and less personal mumbo jumbo in the latter half of it. I would however be interested in seeing another film with these two characters in another situation that would allow them more time together on screen rather than on an earpiece, such as the two of them together in a field operation, as the chemistry between the two would be great, but the situation they were faced with in this film prevented such greatness. And seeing as this was an adaptation of David Ignatius' novel, then there won't be a sequel.