Monday, November 3, 2008

The Body of Lies Post

Body of Lies is the latest Ridley Scott vehicle and another attempt to shed a different light on the conflicts in the Middle East. It centers around Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprico as they speak a lot to each other via earpieces as they attempt to track down Muslim extremists. Crowe stays in Langley while Leo runs around a myriad of countries as they try to bait and track a particularly nasty terrorist organization.

Not that he does a poor job, but DiCaprio always seems to play the same role with slightly different facial hair to me. His character Ferris in this film is just too goody-goody and cliché for my liking. His apparent love for the Middle East feels hollow considering all he does there is pick up pieces of his either deceased or untrustworthy comrades and generally gets his shit kicked every time he’s there. The love interest feels tacked on and very unrealistic, and its attempt to
mesh opposing worlds is largely unsuccessful. I also found Russell Crowe to be a bit of a waste here. We’ve seen this guy play all kids of exciting and dynamic roles, but Scott has him do little more than talk into an earpiece ands stare down his own nose over the top of his glasses. His character feels desperately undercooked despite his star status.

The movie’s pacing issues made a two hour movie feel substantially longer and had me loosing interest at the halfway mark. The payoff for the audience’s patience’s is unfortunately not on the level that I was expecting and could have been accomplished more concisely and effectively in half the time.
Body of Lies is not a bad movie, it’s just really not what I look for in entertainment. It felt too
slow, too dry and didn’t deliver the emotional experience a cross cultural action/dramas should.

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