Body of Lies (2008)

A CIA agent on the ground in Jordan hunts down a powerful terrorist leader while being caught between the unclear intentions of his American supervisors and Jordon Intelligence.

Director:

Ridley Scott

Writers:

William Monahan (screenplay), David Ignatius (novel)

Stars:

Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Leonardo DiCaprio	...	Roger Ferris
Russell Crowe	...	Ed Hoffman
Mark Strong	...	Hani
Golshifteh Farahani	...	Aisha
Oscar Isaac	...	Bassam
Ali Suliman	...	Omar Sadiki
Alon Aboutboul	...	Al-Saleem
Vince Colosimo	...	Skip
Simon McBurney	...	Garland
Mehdi Nebbou	...	Nizar
Michael Gaston	...	Holiday
Kais Nashif	...	Mustafa Karami
Jamil Khoury	...	Marwan (as Jameel Khoury)
Lubna Azabal	...	Aisha's Sister Cala
Ghali Benlafkih	...	Aisha's Nephew Rowley

Storyline

Roger Ferris is a CIA operative in the Middle East; Ed Hoffman is his control at Langley. Cynicism is everywhere. In Amman, Roger works with Hani Salaam, Jordan's head of security, whose only dictum is "Don't lie to me." The Americans are in pursuit of a cleric who leads a group placing bombs all over Europe. When Hani rebukes Ed's demand that Jordan allow the Americans to use one of Jordan's double agents, Roger and Ed hatch a plan to bring the cleric to them. The plan is complicated by its being a secret from Hani and by Roger's attraction to a local nurse. Satellites and cell phones, bodies and lies: modern warfare.

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Plot Keywords:

spy | jordan | middle east | terrorist | cia | 

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Taglines:

Trust no one. Deceive everyone.

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

14A

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros. [Spain] Warner Bros. [France]

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English Arabic

Release Date:

10 October 2008 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Une vie de mensonges

Filming Locations:

White House - 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$70,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£991,979 (UK) (21 November 2008)

Gross:

$39,380,442 (USA) (9 January 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Scott Free Productions, De Line Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

While the derelict-but-surviving US neighborhood where the Manchester Scenes were filmed had plenty of its own street litter and urban debris, the Hollywood crew (in the effort to make the area look like an English slum) had left certain piles of prop rubbish in precise places. For scene continuity, such rubbish needed to remain present - even when scenes took multiple days to film. To protect against unwitting community litter cleanup, "essential" debris was flagged overnight and on weekends with "hot set" tape (a specialized version of other American yellow hazard tapes which say things like "caution caution caution", "wet paint", or "police line do not cross").

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Goofs

Almost every time Hoffman and Ferris are on the phone with each other, there is a bright daylight in the background of both, although there is 8 to 9 hours difference between Hoffman's location (Langley) and Ferris' location (various places in the Middle East).

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Quotes

[first lines]
Title Card: I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn, those to whom evil is done, do evil in return. - W.H. Auden

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Connections

Referenced in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Episode #7.141 (2009)

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Soundtracks

Some Like It Hot
Written by Necmi Cavli
Performed by Oojami
Courtesy of Mac3 Artists, Inc.

User Reviews

A marvelous character study

Amidst all the slam-bang, Body of Lies is actually a superb character study of two preening, bumbling CIA (presumably) agents trying to save the world in the Middle East. Roger Ferris (Di Caprio) is the agent on the ground, and Ed Hoffman (Crowe) is his remote-control boss in Washington. Their collective M.O. is to overreact and improvise at every turn, aided and abetted by their deep attachment to high-tech gadgetry and fundamental disregard for human lives. Their ally and foil, the Jordanian head of intelligence (Mark Strong), prefers more patient methods informed by a less skin-deep understanding of the people(s) involved.

All three are trying to penetrate and take out a shadowy, violent Islamic fundamentalist group and its leader. The plot is serviceable, the elements familiar, but it all works well to coax out Scott's and screenwriter William Monahan's critiques of the American way of unconventional war in the Middle East. The movie itself is funny, visually fine (Scott's touch hasn't deserted him), and engaging. Its center is the uneasy but highly entertaining partnership between Di Caprio and Crowe. At times verging on pure comedy (their semi-serious macho argument over which of them could beat up the other 10 years ago is a high point), the film never tips too far in this direction thanks to the two actors' easy skill and Scott's sure hand at maintaining a certain tone.

Is Body of Lies an antiwar statement? I don't think so - it's possible Monahan and Scott even think the Americans' grotesque imperial venture has a chance, if only they could learn a few lessons from the likes of the self-possessed Jordanian. But this seems unlikely. At the beginning, Crowe makes the very good point that it's precisely the Americans' mastery of (by?) their high-tech appurtenances that makes it nearly impossible for them to see their foes, who use much more down-to-earth techniques - like passing instructions by word of mouth. He then proceeds to ignore his own advice throughout the movie. Di Caprio rips into Crowe for his disregard of the lives of their local operatives, then goes on to thoughtlessly place in mortal danger an architect and an Iranian refugee nurse with whom he's infatuated.

They just don't learn. If they did, they wouldn't be who they are: the gallant spreaders of justice, democracy, and casual calamity. If that's what Scott and Monahan are trying to tell us, it's antiwar statement enough, the same news that Graham Greene brought us over 50 years ago with The Quiet American, updated and just as pertinent.