Body of Lies B

In theatres. Rated R. 128 Minutes.
After a late summer/early fall dearth of good films, we’re finally hitting some Oscar warm-up fare. Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies appears to be exactly that, although the there’s an unspoken warning when a Ridley Scott film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe isn’t playing with the big boys in November and December. This one wants to be Syriana but ends up closer to Ridley’s brother Tony’s Spy Game.

Here’s the set-up: DiCaprio is a deep cover CIA operative in Iraq taking directives from Crowe, the picture of American excess, who’s directing his every move in bathrobes and gingham shirts from soccer games and satellite smart rooms in the States. After a big score that leaves him pulling his local partner’s bone shards out of his arm, Leo gets promoted to head up the Jordanian office where he impresses the head of Jordanian intelligence and sets up an uneasy alliance based on a trust neither party believes. All the while Crowe is using Leo as a high value pawn in an international game with subtlely changing rules DiCaprio sees on the ground but Crowe is missing.

So far so good, but the introduction of a forced and emotionally extraneous but expedient love interest for Leo forecasts a series of increasingly irrational, out-of-character, and unbelievable plot turns. Happily, as he demonstrated in the near-perfect Black Hawk Down, Scott shoots military action as well as anyone. His use of multiple camera techniques, from hand held to satellite views to traditional crane shots, bring the action into the theatre and distract from his momentary loss of focus.

But what a focus when it’s sharp. Lies dissects the ramifications of the U.S. involvement in torture and the loss of the moral high-ground implicit in that. The American hubris, perfectly personified by the fat, just-over-the-hill Crowe, is even more pointedly torpedoed. Lines like, “It’s the Middle East. No one wants to live there,” betray our own latent feelings while exposing them for the obvious lies they are when uttered against this backdrop.

This is the third film in a row between Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe (American Gangster, A Good Year). Thus far it appears that Scott’s getting more out of this partnership than Crowe is. They next partner in 2009’s Nottingham. Let’s hope they both bring their A-game to that one. B

On a side note, the new Guns N' Roses song plays over the final credits. It doesn't suck.