Body of Lies

Body of Lies (Warner Bros.)

Rated R for strong violence including some torture, and for language throughout.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac.

Written by William Monahan and David Ignatius.

Directed by Ridley Scott.

GRADE: B

REVIEW

By Dan Metcalf

As the gap between the reality of 9/11 and present day widens, it seems Hollywood has become more and more comfortable in taking on projects that feature terrorism and the people who fight against it. As the time gap grows wider, I worry that the subject matter becomes less real for those who live and lived through the tragedy of 9/11 and the war that followed. Body of Lies is the latest 'War on Terror' drama that uses such graphic reality as a backdrop.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, a CIA agent in Iraq on the trail of a fictional terrorist leader. He works for CIA boss Ed Hoffman (played by Russell Crowe), a man who wages the War on Terror from his cell phone head set back in Washington D.C. When Ferris gets an important tip as to the whereabouts of terror boss Al-Saleem, who is supposedly a leader of bin Laden-like importance, a plan is devised to place the tough CIA soldier in Jordan, where he attempts to befriend the head of the Jordanian secret police. The tense relationship between Ferris and Hani (played by Mark Strong) is the critical plot point of the entire film as the Ferris tries to convince Hoffman that playing nice with the Jordanians will garner more successful anti-terror results for the U.S. than keeping the war to themselves.

Along the way, Ferris develops a love interest in a beautiful Iranian nurse living in Jordan (played by real-life Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani), and tries not to get killed or blow the mission to capture the elusive terror leader. When the governmental relationship with Hani sours, Ferris and Hoffman devise a plan to draw Al-Saleem into the open by conjuring up a terror competitor by using an innocent Saudi architect. The plan works, albeit with some tragic consequences to the innocent pawns in the CIA's game.

The story reaches its apex when Ferris discovers he himself is a pawn in yet another ruse to get to the terrorist leader. What follows is a scene that many will find disturbing as Ferris comes face to face with the evil he has tried so long to bring down.

Body of Lies is full of action and tense drama, and would be a great film if it didn't fall into the most recent and familiar pit of Hollywood cliches relative to terrorism. Unlike movies of the 80s and 90s, it seems all CIA operations are evil and flawed these days. Americans aren't the good guys anymore; no one is. While I'm sure everyone agrees the War on Terror isn't always seen as a conflict with stark lines between good and evil, I can't help but wonder if the predominant Hollywood wisdom doesn't promote or even rally behind the idea that America gets what it deserves from terrorism. Surely not all CIA operations are rife with uncaring bosses who sacrifice collateral damages as they would a used napkin. Surely not all U.S. operations depend on the sacrifice of innocent pawns.

DiCaprio does a fine job as the movie's protagonist, but his (and Crowe's) dinner-theater southern accents add the to the cliché of Amercans as shoot-from-the hip cowboys. Ridley Scott's photography and direction are top-notch, and the action kept me interested in the final outcome. Even so, The violence and torture scenes are not for the squeamish, and the images of suicide and car bombings might be a little too realistic for those who haven't forgotten the real consequences of terrorism.