DVD Review of Body of Lies
Tale of Counterterrorist Espionage in the Middle East
© Cody Roy
Feb 22, 2009
In 2005, director Ridley Scott recreated the year 1184 and the era of the Crusades in Kingdom of Heaven, and now, three years later (or nearly a thousand in “film years”), he finds himself knee-deep in the sands of the Middle East again, dissecting essentially the same Christian-Muslim conflict. Based on screenwriter William Monahan’s adaptation of journalist David Ignatius’ novel, Body of Lies centers around two CIA agents: Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe).
Body of Lies Synopsis
Following a string of bombings in Sheffield, Manchester, and Amsterdam, an über-terrorist known as The White Whale or Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul) surreptitiously takes credit for the senseless attacks, which sets in motion Ferris and Hoffman. A (com)passionate field operative, Ferris can speak Arabic just well enough and has a dark beard just scraggly enough to pass for a Muslim, so he must carry out counterterrorist espionage directly. Whereas Hoffman, a paunchy, rumpled Southerner back in Langley, calls the shots from afar while taking his kids to soccer games.
After a few setbacks and dead-ends, Ferris devises a devious plan to draw Al-Saleem out from hiding by appealing to his sense of hubris. Although Jordanian architect Omar Sadiki (Ali Suliman) may be innocent, Ferris plants enough incriminating photos and suspicious bank accounts to make him appear as not only a Jihadist, but as the leader of a new terrorist cell known as the Brothers of Awareness. After Sadiki supposedly takes credit for a bombing on American property in Incirlik, Turkey, Al-Saleem comes calling. The plan, however, goes awry when Ferris is exposed, resulting in the kidnapping of his girlfriend Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani).
Critique
Scott is once again masterful at creating blistering action and military verisimilitude, an effort complemented well by solid acting. Crowe does a good job portraying the stolid Hoffman, but his talent is entirely underutilized. And although DiCaprio, all grown up from his roles in Blood Diamond and The Departed, gives an exceptional performance, he is clearly outshone by the scene-stealing, suave Jordanian head of intelligence Hani Salaam (Mark Strong).
The film’s weakness comes in the form of a glaring contradiction in the plot. Opening with verse from W.H. Auden—“Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return”—Body of Lies seems to be espousing the notion of using the enemies’ own tactics against them. And by fabricating a terrorist mastermind, it appears that Ferris’ plan does just that, but it’s the way in which he does so that causes problems. Early on in the movie, he basically compliments the Arabs for eschewing cell phones and computers when strategizing, yet Ferris’ success hinges entirely on the presumption that the enemy will rely on technology to track down Sadiki.
But contradictions are to be expected in a time when trust is crucial to survival yet essentially impossible, in a land where the truth lies.
