Details
Movie Description
Leonardo DiCaprio fights terrorists for the CIA in this rapid-fire thriller from director Ridley Scott (GLADIATOR, BLACK HAWK DOWN). While Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) gets his hands dirty on the teeming Arab streets, his handler Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) watches from Washington via spy satellite, cheerfully giving bull-in-a-china-shop style orders while picking up his kids from school. Innocent lives are lost, buildings blow up, and the threat of winding up beheaded on the internet is always one move away. LIES is decked out from front to back with fascinating bits of Arabic and espionage minutiae as it races along its wild mission to track down an elusive terrorist sect leader. Crowe has fun in his portly Southern-accented INSIDER mode, while DiCaprio does his usual anguished moral suffering over the fate of individuals (To Crowe's Hoffman, it's all just part of war and nobody's innocent). As the suave head of Jordanian intelligence, Mark Strong gives a scene-stealing, cobra-like performance that clashes beautifully with Crowe's "ugly American" bullying. The beautiful Golshifteh Farahani plays the obligatory love interest, the nurse who treats Ferris's regularly occurring battle and torture wounds. When most action heroes are completely healed within minutes of every fight, it's refreshing--in a grisly sort of way--to see how Ferris's wounds bruises pile up. The solid, punchy script is by William Monahan (THE DEPARTED) from the David Ignatius novel., Though this thriller is the fourth collaboration between Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, it marks the veteran director's first pairing with Leonardo DiCaprio. In this adaptation of a novel by David Ignatius, DiCaprio plays a CIA agent who wants the help of a more experienced agent (Crowe) in his investigation of a Jordanian terrorist.
Industry Reviews
3 stars out of 4 -- "[BODY OF LIES] has the gritty feel of something observed firsthand. And the crafty script by DEPARTED Oscar winner William Monahan stays coiled and ready to spring."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (10/16/2008)
"BODY OF LIES is a tautly paced, well-acted espionage thriller with the requisite explosions and action sequences....[With] powerful performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Strong and Russell Crowe..."
USA Today - Claudia Puig (10/12/2008)
3 stars out of 5 -- "With every minute that passes in Ridley Scott's talky political thriller, DiCaprio swells to fit the role, forced to bring his A-game by two heavyweight co-stars."
Total Film - Jonathan Crocker (12/01/2008)
3 stars out of 4 -- "DiCaprio and Crowe are as solid as ever, but the cast standout is Mark Strong....[The plot] is fast and interesting enough to keep you thoroughly engaged."
Premiere - Premiere Staff (02/17/2009)
"[A] cat-and-mouse CIA thriller....Scott pulls off some tense action sequences..."
Entertainment Weekly - Chris Nashawaty (02/20/2009)
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