Movie Review: 'Body of Lies" pits spy vs. spy in War-on-Terror era

Movie tells story of double-crosses, deceptions involving agents, allies

By By John Beifuss / beifuss@commercialappeal.com

Thursday, October 9, 2008

"Body of Lies" opens with an epigraph from a poem by W.H. Auden: "Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return."

This is what the English-language abusers of today might call an "impactful" quote, but it has two unfortunate effects.

The first is that compared to Auden's poem, "September 1 1939," written after Hitler invaded Poland, "Body of Lies" is -- inevitably -- a noisy, bloated, clumsy thing, even if it is more artful than most current major studio movies.

The second is that it serves to make the next 128 minutes almost redundant, as director Ridley Scott and screenwriter William Monahan drop us into the Middle East alongside C.I.A. agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), a witness to, participant in and victim of the violence exchanged among all sides in what Washington calls the War on Terror.

"We will avenge the American wars on the Muslim world," says an Osama bin Laden-esque cleric (Alon Aboutboul). Meanwhile, U.S.-based veteran spy manager Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) warns that the West faces "potentially a global conflagration that requires constant diligence to suppress."

The second Scott/Crowe film in less than a year ("American Gangster" opened here Nov. 2), "Body of Lies" jumps from Iraq to Syria to Jordan to Washington to Amsterdam to Turkey to Dubai to stitch together a story of sometimes lethal double-crosses and deceptions involving American spies and their allies. (The lies and forged identities make this a sort of companion piece to Monahan's previous film, "The Departed," set in the undercover culture of Boston cops and robbers.)

A supremely confident and accomplished filmmaker responsible for such famous movies as "Alien," "Blade Runner" and "Gladiator," Scott makes much of the contrast between the bruised, bloodied and highly strung Ferris and his seemingly calm handler, who is seen dropping off his kids at school or watching a soccer game from the safety of suburban Washington while he dispatches deadly advice over his cell phone. Scott manages the complicated action with aplomb, but the film remains stubbornly uninvolving. DiCaprio bleeds and curses and emotes all over the desert, but the movie he inhabits seems cold, like a clockwork mechanism. (Crowe's role is less showy, but he's more fun to watch; he seems to enjoy playing an unimpressive-looking middle-aged man whose paunch has expanded in inverse ratio to his empathy.)

The film, based on a novel by David Ignatius, is enhanced by the presence of a welcome newcomer to English-language cinema, Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who stars as an attractive nurse wooed by Ferris after he seeks treatment for dog bites. It's not exactly a meet-cute scenario, but it may represent the first screen courtship that begins with rabies shots.

-- John Beifuss, 529-2394