Body of Lies (2008)
Directed by Ridley Scott
The CIA’s hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency’s man on the ground, moving from place to place, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. An eye in the sky – a satellite link – watches Ferris. At the other end of that real-time link is the CIA’s Ed Hoffman, strategizing events from thousands of miles away. And as Ferris nears the target, he discovers trust can be just as dangerous as it is necessary for survival.
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4 films that influenced Body of Lies
What critics say influenced Body of Lies
David Thewlis' Johnny in Naked is a notable example, as is Nicola, the nasty plumber played by Jane Horrocks in Life Is Sweet.
For all the convolutions in the script by William Monahan ("The Departed"), based on a novel by David Ignatius, the story is really quite simple, if not downright simple-minded.
The screenwriter, William Monahan (“The Departed”), working from a novel by the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, presents Ferris as a kind of ideal, and he appears, depressingly, to be the only one in the C.I.A. with the cultural sensitivity to understand the nature of the war we’re fighting.
We can fill in the blanks when he portrays Howard Hughes (“The Aviator,” 2004), and Scorsese surrounds him with action and great actors in “Gangs of New York” (2002) and “The Departed” (2006).
Screenwriter William Monahan ("The Departed"), adapting the novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, creates Ferris as an idealized white knight in a very black world that extends well beyond the shadowy alleys of the Middle East to the corridors of CIA headquarters.
But the script by William Monahan (who also wrote The Departed) never takes the time to tease out the moral distinctions that would make these differences mean something.
Based on a novel by David Ignatius and adapted by William Monahan ("The Departed"), Ridley Scott 's movie aims to be up-to-the-moment - yet feels same-old, same-old.
Cut from much the same mold as his character in "Blood Diamond," DiCaprio is responsible for conveying most of the intensity and urgency that saturates this film.
The comparison wouldn't hold for long if a less dashing actor were in the role -- which is not unlike the hero Leo played in Blood Diamond , a man of action with ideals who decides to do some good because hes fed up with the dirty world around him.
DiCaprio builds upon his work in The Departed and Blood Diamond .
And DiCaprio's Ferris is cut from the same cloth as his mercenary character in Blood Diamond, so much so that the two are practically interchangeable.
It’s official: the Ridley Scott who created such signature visions as Blade Runner and Alien is dead and has been replaced by a pod person that churns out slick-looking, but wholly generic big-budget time-wasters like American Gangster and A Good Year.
Gladiator was no great shakes (Oscars be damned) and A Good Year and American Gangster prove that tying your fortunes to a single signature actor is not always a guarantee of DeNiro/Scorsese success.
It's hard to believe that the same director who helmed Black Hawk Down and Gladiator would settle for something this rote, but Scott is definitely hit-and-miss – as such relatively recent misfires as A Good Year (also with Crowe) and Matchstick Men readily attest.
Even when the film is a miss (like Kingdom of Heaven or A Good Year), they are still pretty nifty to look at.
But "Kingdom of Heaven" was a dreary epic; "A Good Year" felt like 12 long months.
Original music by Marc Streitenfeld ("Kingdom of Heaven," "A Good Year") is typical of this type of film, an attempt to pick up one's pulse rate backed by Middle Eastern noodling for location flavor.