The phrase “truth is the first casualty of
war” has become something of a cliché.
But that doesn’t stop BODY OF LIES from banging
home the message with all the subtlety of a hammer smashing down on a man’s
fingers - which is what happens to Leonardo DiCaprio in one particularly
wince-inducing scene of this war-on-terror thriller.
Leo, as CIA station chief Roger Ferris,
really only has himself to blame for his predicament. It’s the end result of
his being less than candid with his boss Ed Hoffman(Russell Crowe), his
Jordanian hosts, and his Iranian girlfriend about his work even though they’re
all supposedly working on the same side.
BODY OF LIES takes us inside the secret,
dirty, merciless war that’s being fought against the Islamic extremists bent on
bringing death and destruction to those they perceive as their mortal enemies.
To borrow another cliché, it’s a story
ripped from today’s headlines, complete with bombings of soft civilian targets,
home-grown British-born terrorists, a charismatic and elusive mullah, and the “enhanced
interrogation” of Moslem suspects.
Ferris and Hoffman personify the CIA’s
rather schizophrenic response to the danger. The former is an Arab specialist.
He understands the culture and he speaks the language. The latter has none of
these skills and sees no reason to acquire them. For him the natural
superiority that comes with being American is enough.
Hoffman is an armchair general, running the
war from his cellphone while taking the kids to school, eating lunch on the
Mall in Washington DC, or ensconced in his hi-tec lair at Langley. For him the battle
is something he watches on his big screen tv courtesy of the many US spy
satellites circling the globe. He has no interest in the reality of Ferris’s
experiences on the ground.
But if BODY OF LIES is intended as a
condemnation of American foreign policy in recent years it’s somewhat
undermined by Crowe’s unconvincing performance.
This is his fourth collaboration with
director Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”, “A Good Year” and “American Gangster”) and
it’s easily his least effective. Hoffman is an unpleasant, arrogant racist but
he’s not a plausible character. Crowe’s endowed him with just two traits - a
less than convincing South Carolina
accent and a tendency to tilt his head down and look over the top of his
glasses when he talks.
That’s it; there’s nothing else. He’s so
one dimensional that it’s not even possible to dislike him.
DiCaprio is considerably more credible as
the CIA operative attempting to straddle two cultures and serve two masters,
but for me the real star is Mark Strong as Hani Salam, the Jordanian head of
intelligence. Salam is ostensibly one of the “good” guys but Strong plays the
part as just this side of a James Bond villain and we’re never sure just which
side he is really on.
Scott directs with his customary energy. His
camera swoops into the crowded streets of Amman,
across the empty desert spaces of Syria
and between the towering skyscrapers of Qatar,
emphasising the restless nature of the Middle East.
It’s a region in perpetual motion and not all of it is forward. But he can’t
resist coating everything with a patina of Hollywood gloss. He even succeeds in
putting a shine on the squalor of the shanty towns land this detracts from the
reality of the story he’s telling.
Sprawling and overlong with a conclusion
that succeeds in being both implausible and disappointingly formulaic, BODY OF
LIES is reasonably exciting but far from outstanding entertainment.Watch is once and you'll never be troubled by the urge to see it again.
