Body of Lies

Very long. Ending was underwhelming but had a cool storyline. Def watch zero dark thirty before this one and I’d only watch this if you love action thriller with war. 6.0/10

way too much informations for my brain but yeah

Ok

Ok

Thought it was pretty good. Leo & Crowe are two of my favorites and I thought they were both  good in this. I enjoyed the middle east setting and there’s good action and twists, but the ending fell short for me. Some of the plot was also little all over the place at times



Plot: Leo is a CIA agent who is in the middle east trying to take down the terrorist leader Al-Saleem who is planning to blow up several parts of the world. He is on the ground in several countries in the middle east as his boss Russell Crowe is enjoying life in America talking to him through the phone. Leo enjoys living there and wants the Middle Eastern support to trust him, Crowe plays the fat American who doesn’t trust any of them and doesn’t care about any casualties that come to innocent middle east people. Leo and Crowe are often at odds and Crowe constantly ruins Leo’s plans. Crowe just calls him buddy the whole time which shows how casual and comfortable he is.

A bunch of things happen but ultimately Leo falls in love with a nurse there and Leo is also working with Hani Salaam who is basically the leader of Jordan’s version of CIA who also want Al-Saleem. Leo & Crowe have a plan to make a fake terrorist leader to threaten Al-Saleem’s rule and get him out of hiding. It works but the fake terrorist is taken and killed before Leo can get to him. The fake terrorist revealed who Leo is so it looks like Al-Saleem’s men took Leo’s girlfriend. Leo offers himself in exchange and Leo is tortured by Al-Saleem. He is about to be killed on camera when he is saved and Al-Saleem is arrested. Turns out it was Hani Salaam who saved him and arrested Al-Saleem. But Salaam reveals he faked the kidnap of Leo’s girlfriend so Leo can lure them to Al-Saleem. Then Leo cuts ties with Crowe because he hates that Crowe sees everyone (including Leo) expendable to win the war on terror. Leo quits the CIA and lives a quiet life in Jordan.

It’s been a good few years I last watched this one, although judging by my initial rating, my thoughts haven’t changed much on it.

It’s an interesting story, one that unfortunately will always feel timely. It all feels pretty dramatised for engagement, particularly early before calming itself down for a slow second act.

DiCaprio and Crowe do a very good job, couldn’t really take the Mark Strong casting especially seriously - storage choice. Some cool supports scattered throughout, big fan of what Oscar Isaac was able to do in a small amount of runtime.

Sits around the middle of Ridley Scott’s filmography for me. It’s far less passionate than a lot of his other, better work. Still a very good film - maybe I’ll watch it again in another 10 years.