When you get to know a movie by Ridley Scott( Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) and a script by William Monaghan ( The Departed ) with star cast of Leonardo Dicaprio and Russell Crowe, its only excitement that yield you to finally watch these movie “ Body of Lies”.
“Body of Lies “is indeed true in its sense, it is excessively intricate. The name sounds to be a thriller with kind of espionage centered drama but there is completely lacking of these. These time Ridley Scott have to walk out with a sordid face, because even Monaghan( The Departed) couldn’t have perfected the dialogues in a better way than just to influence the cellular phonetics with full of slurs and abuses. Many critics have commented this film as a political film, but I would say it as a typical Hollywood masala film. The film lacks in charisma and reality with that of subtle political drama”Syriana” neither it is different from “The Kingdom” “Rendition” “Lion for Lambs”. And I am far more disappointed because there isn’t that much of firework that I expect to see between Dicaprio and Russell Crowe; they have only a few scenes together. Crowe and Dicaprio spent most of their time on speaking on headsets.
In “Body of Lies” Crowe plays EdHoffman, a thick waisted CIA guy who hovers almost in all the movie in his headset instructing and demanding things to be done from his man Roger Ferris( Dicaprio) who is sent to Jordan to take charge of capturing the terrorist. Ferris then enlists the aid of Hani ( Mark Strong) the head of the Jordanian intelligence service. The film describes a post-9/11 world where U.S. and Jordanian governments, nominally anti-terrorist allies, distrust each other and refuse to share information. .Hani insists on Ferris’ unconditional honesty while he does his own thing in mystery, these lack of trust proves prescient as a clumsy move by Hoffman which backfires ended the deal of honesty between Ferris and Hani.
Dicaprio again gets off on playing a tough guy, good enough to pull this movie .And as in a typical Hollywood movie he found time to romance an Arab Nurse( Aisha), following her all the way to Palestine refugee camp, even a dinner at her sisters place for the approval of their relationship. The scene where Ferris gives his hand to thank his girlfriend for the dinner stands out, the orthodox people hovering them to see whether the girl actually gives her hand to the white guy.
Please don’t expect much from Crowe on this movie, he seems to follow from his role in “American Gangster “this time not convincingly. He saunters through the performance, giving a fussy performance. And the scene stealer is Hani (Mark Strong) who rakes the strong impression as the head of Jordanian Intelligence. He is extremely flawless in this movie, right from his sharp dressing sense to his self confidence. He may be the best bet the movie has to offer. Seriously after watching this movie you can sense that the culture conflict is depicted more strongly than the hunt for the terrorist. And the real taste of these movie comes somewhere in the end where Ferris is being subjected to torture by the terrorist. It looks really real. But for that to come on your mind, you have to wait for one hour and forty minutes.
