Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
11/1/08
It's interesting to watch
movie genres evolve over time. Social attitudes change, landmark
movies shape audience expectations, and repetition turns novelty into old
hat in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, real world events demand at
least a temporary pivot in a genre's concerns. For instance, in
a time of war, the Espionage Thriller pretty much has to relocate itself
to the scene of the war in question. That's how we ended up with
the War on Terror Thriller, a genre Hollywood's been racing to refine over
the last few years even as audiences have proven slow to warm up to it.
Ridley Scott's Body of Lies shows the WOTT coming of age:
it's got the requisite attempts to enlighten us about the nature of the
threats emerging from the Middle East and to humanize the non-combatants
who live there. But its' best features have little to do with making
points: Body of Lies is bloated and its' plot too byzantine
by half, but it's fronted by three wonderful, well-played characters, and
it's got a real spring in its' step. In short, this is the first
War on Terror Thriller that dares to be fun.
Europe is rocked by terror
attacks sponsored anonymously by the terrorist Mastermind Al-Saleem (Alon
Aboutboul). Among the men in the field trying to track him down is
Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose skills get him a shot as the top
American anti-terrorist in Jordan. There, he must deal with the local
head of Intelligence, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), who's fiercely loyal but
with little tolerance for betrayal. Alas, betrayal is a way of life
for Roger's boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), a bloated American Intelligence
head who gives orders from his backyard in his bathrobe and changes the
rules whenever he feels like it. His duplicity helps to get Roger
bounced from Jordan, but he's soon got a new plan to nab Al-Saleem:
selecting a random Jordanian citizen and building him a resume as a terrorist
complete with a staged bombing strike on a US base abroad. This unfortunate
man is Omar Sadiki (Ali Suliman), who knows nothing about what's being
done in his name until Al-Saleem grabs him, demanding to know more about
the terrorist who's stolen his thunder. This leaves Ferris scrambling
to save the mission, himself, and the local girl (Golshifteh Farahani)
he's fallen for.
Body of Lies is based
on a recent novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, and I assume
that book was substantially more invested in the fake terrorist plan than
the film version proves to be. It's a clever idea, but here it feels
shoehorned into what's already an overloaded story fighting for screen
time against the far more interesting battle of wills between the three
men tasked with bringing Al-Saleem to justice. Body of Lies'
cloak and dagger plot never really catches fire, perhaps because Al-Saleem
never comes to life as more than a stock villain, and there are times when
my attention wandered from who was chasing whom and why. Ferris's
relationship with a local nurse is all well and good (DiCaprio and Farahani
have nice cross-cultural chemistry), but adds little to the story but running
time.
But I was never anything
less than riveted when Roger Ferris, Ed Hoffman, and Hani Salaam mixed
it up: these are three great characters brought to life with three
excellent performances. Ferris is very much a hero for an ethically
challenged time: with DiCaprio's trademark “but, of course, the rules
don't apply to me” smirk, he's not afraid to imperil any number of innocent
people in his quest to save still more. Sure, he always wants to
do the right thing and swoop in and save them, but how many times can he
really blame Hoffman for screwing him over when Hoffman ALWAYS screws him
over and yet he still plans as though he won't? Sporting a goatee
designed to add a hard edge to his boyish features, DiCaprio manages to
make the juggling act between ethics and expedience work. Part of
the reason is the delightful dynamic between he and Crowe, who wonderfully
nails the stereotypical image foreigners have of Americans: he's
fat, lazy and doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself, but Ed Hoffman
always feels like he's done the right thing as he sits in the nearest chair
and plays the War on Terror like a video game. With his “sitting
AROUND the room” posture and dismissive lack of concern about the life
and death stakes going on around him, Crowe's actually quite hilarious.
And here, I thought that A Good Year proved he couldn't do comedy.
The biggest surprise in the cast is Mark Strong, the veteran English character
actor who looks just Arab enough to occasionally pop up in these sorts
of roles. His Hani is like Michael Corleone as the “good guy”:
he rules Jordanian Intelligence with an iron fist, and when you betray
his trust... well, you don't want to betray his trust. Aided by some
of the most amazingly tailored suits I've ever seen in a film, Strong actually
steals every scene he's in, even against the two heavyweights with whom
he's cast. He's so slick, so smooth, so COOL: I fully
expect this part to change the course of Mark Strong's career.
Ridley Scott is among the
most technically proficient of directors, and he effortlessly keeps Body
of Lies' plates spinning. His love of aerial photography is very
much in evidence in the extensive satellite footage and the terror attacks
are appropriately jarring as are a few torture scenes. He gets great
work from his cast, and keeps the whole enterprise surprisingly high-spirited
for this genre, which generally spends a lot of time lecturing to us.
Body of Lies is more like a James Bond movie than Syrianna,
and has the interesting opposite result of feeling more like it's set in
a real living, breathing Middle East because the characters don't keep
stopping to explain themselves and their world to us. Now, if it
had been about a half hour shorter, they'd have really been onto something.
At the end of the day, Body
of Lies is primarily a star vehicle, and it's got some great stars.
Their fans should be satisfied, while those expecting espionage thrills
might be disappointed. But give it its' due: for the first
time, I felt like a War on Terror Thriller had taken the training wheels
off of its' Middle Eastern world. I'd rather we didn't have such
a pressing need for this genre, but while we do, it's a good evolutionary
step. |
