Body of Lies: Movie Review (2008)

The new Ridley Scott thriller, “Body of Lies,” is a misfire, but not an embarrassment. So, that’s positive, I guess.

It features solid performances from a committed cast, a timely story that plunges into the murk of the Middle East, and a director who seriously wants to understand and capture on film all of the nuances, complexities, double-crosses and dangers our war against terror has ignited overseas.

Good luck with that, you say? Good luck, indeed. The trouble with the movie isn’t just that we’re still too close to our involvement in the Middle East to see it clearly, but that the movie itself fails to make us believe that it sees it clearly. “Body of Lies” is too ambitious for its own good. It tries to view the Middle East from so many angles, it lacks the critical clarity of vision necessary to carry itself and audiences through to the end.

What’s also working against it is its budget, which is so large, Scott and his screenwriter, William Monahan (“The Departed”), had to balance any insight they might have gleaned from David Ignatius’ book, on which the film is based, with the cheaper underpinnings of entertainment. Problem is, the two don’t mix because Scott and Monahan don’t want a mere entertainment. More than anything, they want something that’s profound, which would have been nice if the crowd-pleasing elements hadn’t undermined them.

The film’s plot is so dense, a streamlined version follows: Leonardo DiCaprio is Roger Ferris, a CIA operative working the angles in Jordan while his superior, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), assists him in Virginia via his laptop. Hoffman does so with the help of satellites, which zoom in and out with such scary precision, they allow Hoffman to watch Ferris with ease--at least while he’s outside.

Their mission is more complicated than the cool, hammy Hoffman would have you believe. Ferris has been charged to flush out a powerful Islamic terrorist (Alon Aboutboul). To do so, he has infiltrated himself into the arms of Hani Salaam (Mark Strong, excellent), Jordan’s suave head of security, whose trust Ferris must obtain if he’s to secure the kind of intelligence he needs to bring down his man.

If all of this sounds straightforward, it isn’t. Some will argue, of course, that it can’t be--we are, after all, dealing with the Middle East, which is complicated beyond reason.

But regardless of how good the performances are--and they are very good here--what good are they in a cluttered, unfocused movie that can’t contain its story or its characters, and which too often lacks logic and narrative drive? And why offer a forced, awkward romantic subplot involving Ferris and a pretty nurse (Golshifteh Farahani) when it has no place in the movie? Oh right, to broaden the audience and to help pay for the movie.

Too bad by doing so they screwed it up.

Grade: C