Release Date: October 10, 2008 Studio: Warner Bros. MPAA Rating: R Genre: Thriller •
Action Director: Ridley Scott Writers: William Monahan, David Ignatius Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac, Simon McBurney Synopsis: BODY OF LIES reunites GLADIATOR's Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe in a sharp, often violent political thriller about the CIA's Middle East-based war on terror.
Equally-billed Leonardo DiCaprio also brings in a terrific performance in this drama that proves that even in this age of cell phones, laptop computer and high resolution remote-control spy satellites, the old adage is still correct:"In war, truth is the first casualty." The Review: This review was brought to you by America's CYA, covering your ass since 1947.
BODY OF LIES is an adult, complex, occasionally brutal look at American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Roger Ferris, a young hotshot CIA operative. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he speaks Arabic and seems to understand the value of working with the locals as he tries to put an end to a terrorist cell.
Russell Crowe is Ed Hoffman, a stateside CIA specialist who coaches Ferris over the phone , plugged into an ever-present earpiece and mini mike.
BOL takes place all over the political hotspots of The Middle East--- Iraq, Iran, Sudan, The United Arab Emirates,Dubai and probably a few other places I forgot to write down.
The convoluted, yet-easy-to-follow plot involves Ferris as he sets up his camp in Jordan. He hopes to ally himself with the dapper local intelligence head Hani (Mark Strong) in an effort to remove the wily and illusive terrorist chief Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul).
Since the bad guy is blowing up markets in Sheffield, England UK and in The Netherlands, Hoffman isn’t interested in Ferris and Hani’s low key, taking-the-time-to-install-an-operative-in-the-terrorist’s-midst-and-then-at-some-point-some-day-making-use-of-him-plans. Nope, Hoffman wants results now .
One of the film’s strengths is how it plays up the incongruities of the extreme dangers that face Ferris as we see Hoffman go about his normal upper-middle class suburban existence.
Hoffman is the ultimate “Company” man, an arrogant a-hole, dispassionately talking Ferris through life and death situations, all the while helping his son point the right way when he goes pee pee in the pot (sorry for the nomenclature,but we’re going through potty training over here ).
I could never multi-task like Hoffman does here : he can cheer his daughter on at her soccer game and calmly coach Ferris over a secure line at the same time.
When Hoffman comes into Jordan to take over where he thinks Ferris has failed, it’s clear that he, as the head cheerleader for America’s best interests overseas, doesn’t care what the locals want to do . He wants things done the way they have been done before and whereas Hani insists on complete honesty as the only prerequisite to working with Ferris, Hoffman will happily lie—directly or indirectly, to whoever he needs to
When all else seems to fail in rounding up Al-Saleem, Ferris comes up with the wacky idea of countering the Terrorists by creating a new, totally fake counter-terrorist.
If this new kid on the block can accomplish something the real bad guy couldn’t or didn’t than the real one did, then the bad guy should come out of hiding to try and find this new guy and then, we, the good guys can get him.
Got it?
There’s a nice little subplot involving Ferris’ involvement with a Iranian woman named Aisha who works in a local Jordanian clinic . She tends to some massive punctures he sustains after getting his legs nearly chewed off by some nasty looking alley dogs; smiling, he explains the gashes as “ a snowboarding injury”.
Then he really turns on the Leo charm and he’s all like : “Hey did you see TITANIC?” “ That was me!”
And she goes : “No way, dude!”
And he goes: “Way!” ”Not only that, I was in 'Growing Pains!' ”
All right, it’s nothing like that at all. It’s really low key and sweet.
I like how the “love story” was true to Aisha’s background and showed the fragility of international interpersonal relations.
I’m very proud of my man Leo.
He’s grown up very well.
Back in the Titanic-sized Di Caprio craze of the late 1990s, I had it on good authority that a friend of mine since sixth grade --- a grown woman, mind you, was going around with a picture of Leo in her shoe!
How could he possibly out grow that teenybopper nonsense , and was his career heading for the proverbial iceberg?
Well, he outgrew the hype by growing up and his career never faltered because he proved himself to be way too talented, including picking up some really cool roles for Martin Scorcese including the brilliantly complex Howard Hughes in THE AVIATOR and the bad-ass Billy Costigan in THE DEPARTED .
Thank goodness , over the years he’s added a few pounds , lost the baby fat and gained a few lines of his character to his face so he no longer looks like he's fourteen.
Crowe gained the same thirty-five pounds he put on for THE INSIDER and silvered his hair in exactly the same way , but in spite of the physical similarities, these are two completely different guys as the man from down under turns in another great, no-bullshit performance . His gentle southern accent neatly undercuts Hoffman’s ruthlessness and even when he tells Ferris “ I could’ve kicked your ass twenty years ago”, he sounds like he’s kidding but you don’t doubt for a minute he's still very capable of doing it .
PAUSE REVIEW
Open note to Sir Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe:
Dear Esteemed Sirs,
I know you guys are in pre-production on NOTTINGHAM , a re-telling of the Robin Hood legend from the view point of the Sheriff of Nottingham . My colleague, Mr.E read a draft of the script and thought it was pretty good except for the whole “death masks of the victims “ thing (you know what I’m talking about). Now word is out that you Russell are not only playing Nottingham, but you are playing Robin Hood too lead me to humbly and respectfully ask :
“ What the fuck are you guys thinking?”
Really.
If Nottingham is supposed to have the hots for Maid Marion in this flick, but she spurns him for Robin---who looks exactly the same—what is the point ?
Instead of double dipping here, Russ—can I call you Russ ? – how about you and Sir Scott find a suitable actor –that is NOT you—to fill those famous green tights ?
May I suggest the very good, very marketable and very enthusiastic Ewan McGregor ?
Thanks for the cool movies and the great memories,
Erich
RESUME REVIEW
As Aisha, Golshifteh Farahani gives an intelligent performance , gently (and not so gently) deflecting Ferris' overt flirtations. And wow, she is a total doll.
I’ve always liked the name Aisha ever since I met Aisha—she had two of the bluest eyes I'd seen and her cousin Kiran --who I haven't seen since we went to that Eurythmics concert in Berkeley together.
I'm sorry. Where was I?
Oh yeah. Back in August , Ms. Farahani was detained in Iran because she apparently did not get the necessary permit from their ministry of culture to appear in BODY OF LIES. Right now she’s living in France as officials are still looking into her case.
According to the New York Daily News she "I had a lot of problems because of this movie. (Iranian officials) took my passport. The intelligence service interrogated me several times. In the end, the judge said, 'We have to see the movie and then decide what we're going to do with you.'"
She’s very good and it would be a shame if BODY OF LIES was the last we see of her on the big screen.
If you want to see more of her now, someone has created a myspace page for her at http://www.myspace.com/golshiftefarahani.I can't make this stuff up.
Scott’s direction is typically top notch, although I do question some of the decisions he and editor Pietro Scalia made in some of the more explosive action scenes.
Simply put, I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on !
Chaos doesn’t have to be so chaotic. You can do a cut away to a shot of a body stuck in a car. It won’t hurt you.
I also want to tell my reader (s) ,you should probably look away during some of the torture scenes. These ain't THE DARK KNIGHT's magic pencil trick or the giant red Siafu ants in INDIANA JONES. The violence here is unsettlingly graphic and shown extremely close up.
The script by William Monahan based on the novel by David Ignatius (a former CIA correspondent for the Wall Street Journal) is smart, fast-paced, and presents its CIA subject matter too well and too believably for me to feel anything but perfect paranoia at this point.
For example, BODY OF LIES shows the CIA to have ridiculously super-duper Hi-Res surveillance equipment.
How they get those images I don’t know.
Early in the film, out in the middle of nowhere , Ferris looks up and sees a large glint of light in the sky above him.
“Come on you guys,” he yells into his cell phone, “ I can see you!”
“Get the fuck out of here!”
Since I’m not an expert on current trends in espionage technology, I’m guessing that the “eye in the sky” wasn’t a satellite and maybe it was one of those remote control planes like I saw in EAGLE EYE.
Whatever.
Today when you can download a free computer application like Google Earth (tm) and you can search around the planet, getting some amazingly clear pictures of your city, your block, your street and house, it’s pretty easy (and pretty scary) to imagine that the freaking Central Intelligence Agency might have some stuff that makes Google’s images look like an Etch-A-Sketch by comparison.
So, smile for the cameras, don’t pick your nose, and try to look busy. Rating:
