Body of Lies (2008) DVD

Ridley Scott was holding all the Aces with Body of Lies: a top notch cast including regular collaborator Russell Crowe; a sui temporis action plot line about Middle East terrorism and the moral sacrifices America has been forced to make; a William Monahan script; and, of course, a shit load of money to throw at the screen, resulting in shoot outs, spy places and a spectacular helicopter chase.

So what’s up with this busted flush of a film?

Its main failing is a very simple one: Scott has cast two of Hollywood’s most interesting leading men, and then kept them apart for almost the entire film. Leo DiCaprio’s field agent runs around the dusty death bowls of Mesopotamia on the trail of a high-level terrorist, while Russell Crowe’s portly pen pusher barks orders at him from a-far. No doubt this is how America’s ‘intelligence’ community actually works, and Scott has a point to make about how modern warfare has made it too easy to make life-or-death decisions from the comfort of an office armchair. But it leaves Body of Lies with endless expository scenes, limply sacrificing drama for dialogue.

Despite the presence of an unlikely love interest, and a another good supporting role for Mark Strong as a slippery Jordanian intelligence chief (whose cultural ticks – calling DiCaprio’s agent ‘my dear’, and strong shows of masculine affection – are left unexplained, which looks a lot like intimating that not only are these Middle Eastern dudes trying to kill us, they’ll all bum us first if we give them the chance), DiCaprio’s main relationship is with his phone, which is permanently stuck to his ear as if he’s trying to get his agent to explain to him what, exactly, he saw in this project in the first place.

Which he probably is.

Danny Bangs