Body of Lies (2008)

Some of my favorite Ridley Scott-directed movies were Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), Matchstick Men (2003), and American Gangster (2007). In 1982 I moved from the east coast to the west to attend film school, and watched 1-2 movies every day, or so it seemed, when not working on my own projects. Blade Runner's bleak and foggy vision of a future LA hit close to (my new) home and made a deep impression. One of these days I will rent the Director's Cut and see if I still find it brilliant. Everybody knows Thelma & Louise and American Gangster, I would suppose, but Nicholas Cage's twitchy con man in Matchstick Men makes me smile just remembering him and I am a big Sam Rockwell fan (see my post on Choke) (Alison Lohman was great, too).

Anyway, Body of Lies opens with satellite images of the earth, zooming in on our story, making me wish I had that camera attached to my computer. The cinematography and use of computer technology were fabulous, maybe worth the price of admission, but... Early fight scenes had cartoonish blood spatter, fooling me into thinking I wouldn't need to block the center of the screen with my hand to protect my delicate sensibilities from the gore. Nope. As Leonardo Di Caprio's character endured trial after tribulation, Scott threw in a few really ugly details I did not want to see. Leo and Russell Crowe both did good jobs as the lean, mean, undercover machine and the fat (!) bureaucrat, respectively (Crowe was eating in many scenes). Gladiator (2001), also a (Ridley) Scott Free Production starring Oscar winner Crowe, kept all the violence cartoonish, like a graphic novel, and I could keep my hands in my lap. No such luck here. The handsome Jordanian official, Hani, was played by Mark Strong, who played a different sort of cad in the previously-blogged Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (I would not have recognized him without looking him up. What a difference a David Niven mustache makes). Marc Streitenfeld's middle-Eastern-inspired score was divine (I am downloading the soundtrack from iTunes as I type), and I know I saw the names of orchestrators Bruce Fowler, his wife Yvette Moriarty, and his brother Walt Fowler in the music credits, but this movie isn't listed on Bruce's long imdb resume. Music, Locations, and Cinematography 5 stars, Special effects 4 stars, Acting 3-1/2 stars. But I checked my watch with increasing frequency during the second half.