Delayed Reaction: Body of Lies

Premise: A CIA agent attempts to catch a terrorist in the Middle East.

 

It’s nice how there’s seemingly a never-ending supply of populist Ridley Scott movies to stumble onto. There’s aren’t many directors who are more reliable to deliver an entertaining, competent movie. He makes one every year or two, especially in the 2000s. Some are Oscar plays. Others are just for fun. He always gets a cast and has people who know what they are doing on the crew. Body of Lies is a movie that I won’t carry with me for any amount of time. But, when I was looking for a movie to watch that didn’t make me go through a whole emotional journey, I was happy to find this one in my queue.

 

This is a movie from what I call Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dirrty phase. He was boy wonder from about 1993-2000, where he was in full heath throb mode. From 2001-2004 he was in his weaponized youth phase, taking roles like Catch Me If You Can that used his youthful appearance as a way to very serious roles. From around 2005-2008, he picked some “dirt on his hands” roles that played down his looks (The Departed, Blood Diamond, Body of Lies). Roles that didn’t rely on his movie star charisma at all*. Leo never disappears into his Dirrty phase roles. I like his pissant energy though. These guys all have Scrappy Doo energy. I almost feel like if you brought up Titanic to him in those years, he’d tell you to fuck off. I don’t think he’s an optimal Ridley Scott protagonist. He’s a bit too intense. Scott’s best movies tend to have characters who seem annoyed to even be doing this. They’re often sarcastic and/or tired. Like, I can’t imagine what Scott would do with a Daniel Day Lewis showing up on set with all that intensity. Leo makes it work, partly because Scott is not a director whose vision can be overpowered, but it’s not his cleanest fit in a role.

 

*For the record, after that is his Oscar hunting phase (2009-2015) and his current phase that so far I’m calling the “Just for fun” phase.

 

Body of Lies also sums up 2008 Middle East stories in the US. Post Invasion of Iraq, pre-killing of Osama Bin Laden. There’s still some belief that all these efforts will result in something although there’s annoyance that it hasn’t yielded results yet. We weren’t at a terrorist story saturation point yet. 4 years later and this would make a lot more sense as a TV show.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend