Title: Body of Lies
Director: Ridley Scott
Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
With American Gangster and Gladiator in the director's pocket, I would have expected a far better work this. This movie was my first choice in the week of long holidays. Of course, I chose this movie not because of the director, but because of Leonardo DiCaprio. His superb work in Blood Diamond, The Aviator and Catch Me If You Can have made me sitting at the edge of my seat, expecting another dazzling display.
Needless to say, I was disappointed. Of course, if doesn't have much to do with Leonardo's acting skills but the story line. Since 2000, there has been a slew of movies about terrorism... and frankly, I'm quite sick with that.
This movie is about Roger Ferris (Leonardo), a CIA operative who is trying to track down a terrorist Al Salim in Iraq. Together with his handler, Ed Hoffman (Russel Crowe), they hatch plans to snare the evading terrorist. Well, basically that's the whole plot!
I do not know if the director is trying to show off American technology or trying to unsettle us... but the wide usage of satellite to track someone is really unsettling... I have always thought of it as a myth... sure a satellite can show where a person is in a general area, but the degree of precision and clarity shown in the movie meant that there really is nowhere to hide.
Also, ease of Roger to use the identity of an innocent architect in his plans to lure Al Salim out from his hiding place is frightening. I mean, it could be any one of us... and you won't know what happened until a group of terrorist kidnap you and attempt to get information out of you.
Anyway, this movie is pretty easy to understand so there'll be no brain-racking while you're watching the movie. Unfortunately, it sort of meant that this movie felt like being dragged too long (which being 2 hours, felt really quite long). In conclusion, this is definitely not the best work presented by Ridley or Leonardo.
Observation: When the trucks are driving in circles, kicking up the sand to prevent the satellite from watching them, what makes them able to determine the correct direction to leave the circle? (They are trying to smuggle Roger to their hiding place, but the truck with Roger in it has to drive in the correct direction when it leaves the circle and I don't think it's possible to see which direction it is heading, with all the sand flying around.)
Bottomline: Won't hurt to give this a miss.
Bamboo Ranking: 3.0 / 5.0
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