Body of Lies

The deadliest weapons in the war on terror aren’t guns, grenades and tanks. They’re BlackBerrys, e-mails and satellites. Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies takes its place in the flux of Hollywood tech-thrillers straining hard for political heft and bracing relevance. But William Monaghan’s dense screenplay overloads with characters, subplots and details that ramp up the confusion and douse the excitement.

What it does have are a trio of meaty performances. Leonardo DiCaprio is the CIA’s man in the Middle East; Russell Crowe is the doughy intelligence chief who tracks his progress from the comfort of Langley. Together they plan to lure an Osama bin Laden stand-in called Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul) out of hiding.

As in American Gangster, Crowe has little to do, but DiCaprio gives a committed performance that almost eclipses his boyish looks, although it’s still hard to buy him speaking perfect Arabic and butting heads with some of the world’s most dangerous men. Especially when one of those men is suave, shady Jordanian intelligence chief Mark Strong. Engaged in a battle of wit and will with DiCaprio’s agent, Strong is effortless, dangerous and charming – and he blows Leo off the screen.

Behind the camera, Ridley Scott does his fair share of that too. As if bored by the muggy plot progression, he punctuates the movie with some truly concussive ka-booms. For good measure, he also throws in a thrilling surface-to-air duel between attack helicopters, a rocket launcher and a pair of trucks racing through the desert.

But none of it’s enough to give the film the momentum it needs to pull clear of a swamp of details. William Monaghan’s script inherits a similar problem to the one he wrote for Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven: too much talk, not enough urgency. Complex and serious it might be, but we need a deeper dig into the moral mess of the War on Terror.

Jonathan Crocker

Anticipation:

Great cast, but Ridley Scott seems to be fading.

Enjoyment:

Talky and confusing despite bracing moments.

In Retrospect:

DiCaprio may be coming of age but Mark Strong has definitely arrived.