With the escalation of conflict in the Middle East over the past several years, the terror-thriller has found favour with studio heads and filmmakers keen on putting their own stamp on a conflict of their times that rivals the Vietnam war or the era of the Cold War.
There are two sub-types of films that spring forth from this narrow genre -- the war film and the thriller that purports to explore the espionage and political shenanigans that occur behind the scenes of the actual conflict over territory or oil or religion or any other rallying cry that can unite a body of people.
Body of Lies, a movie based on a novel by a newspaper columnist, is the latest addition to the list of movies that populate the latter category. On its surface the film is about CIA agent Roger Ferris [Leonardo DiCaprio] who is on the trail of a terrorist named Al-Saleem [Alon Aboutboul].
While Al-Saleem's people carry out vicious bombing attacks on unsuspecting civilians across Europe, Ferris attempts to track him down via leads in Jordan. For the purpose of effectively executing his mission he needs the assistance of Hani [Mark Strong], the head of Jordanian Intelligence and while Ferris wants to play nice with Hani, his handler Ed Hoffman [Russell Crowe] has his own ideas about who should really be running the show; in Jordan and around the world.
Throughout the movie there are explosions, a bit of driving through the desert, the mandatory scenes of torture, bloodied extremities resulting from aforementioned torture and attempts at deep and meaningful discourse about the state of the world. Unfortunately, none of it rings true -- neither as the subject matter of a popcorn thriller nor as the content of a more erudite summation of the situation the world finds itself in because of muddled motives and opaque statements.
A movie with Body's ambitions relies on star-turn performances to sell the convoluted plotline. As Roger Ferris, DiCaprio is competent. He brings a sufficient amount of gravitas and world-weariness to the young agent with field experience that makes him wise beyond his years.
Even so it is difficult to ignore that his character is no more than a foot soldier in a war that he has little hope of understanding, much less actually helping to win. As his countermeasure [in most respects] Hoffman is the essential smarmy bureaucrat who is determined to fulfill his husbandly duties with almost as much gusto as he brings to his job as 'the man watching the man doing the job of defeating the man [assigned the status of enemy]'.
Still, if one were quibbling it would not be inaccurate to say that it is not much of a challenge for an actor of Mr Crowe's calibre to put on a ton of weight and make sludgy dialogue sound Shakespearean; even if he was talking in his sleep.
The one standout performance is that delivered by Mark Strong, an actor who may seem to be everywhere if his IMDB profile is to be believed. Already seen by Indian audiences in the delightful Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Mr Strong is pitch-perfect as the suave and chilling Hani and it is he who serves as the spine of this somewhat muddled thriller with a real point so small that it seems awfully indulgent to wrap a big-budget movie around it.
It is also no coincidence [considering the final outcome] that the seemingly resolute head of Jordanian Intelligence decides to, in the dying moments of this film, do something quite contrary to the way his character was established.
It is unclear what Body of Lies is trying to be, or be about. As a parable about the pull and push of power versus defiance it really tells us nothing new.
While it paints the young CIA agent as the protagonist of the film it really does a poor job of making him anything less than a willing participant in the schemes of either his own government or that of his hosts in Jordan. Even in his attempts to woo the Iranian immigrant nurse [Golshifteh Farahani] he must go through way too much red tape for little more than a thwarted handshake from her in return. Seems like that, if nothing else, tells the viewer how little influence Ferris is able to truly exert over his overall situation.
In movies like this, the action is usually well envisioned and there is a certain satisfaction to the way it is choreographed and executed. Alas, in this case, even the booms and the bangs seem muted and somehow empty, even in comparison to director Ridley Scott's last few works.
All said and done, Body of Lies, is the type of movie you might catch on television if you happened to switch channels right around the time the company logos begin flashing on screen at the beginning of the film. If you come in at any other point in the film, you might end up wondering what Russell Crowe is doing in Blood Diamond or how you missed the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio was in The Insider. That is truly how lacking in uniqueness this film ends up being.
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