The search for brilliant modern thrillers goes on . . . and on. There seem to be so few that I’m forever trying unpromising ones, such as Body of Lies, directed by the master, Ridley Scott, which came out six months ago and is already available on DVD.
I expected taut, visually sparkling direction from Scott and I got it. The action scenes are plentiful enough and frenetically tense. Leonardo DiCaprio is, for once, splendid, fully expressing the pent-up professionalism of Arabic-speaking CIA operative Roger Ferris, in Jordan to track down a seemingly untraceable Muslim terrorist. Ferris is handled by his paunchy, utterly manipulative Langley boss (played superbly by Russell Crowe) and must also work with the charismatic, slipperyhead of Jordanian security (a strong performance from Mark Strong). The obligatory love interest, a local Muslim nurse, is handled with more realism than most thrillers manage. As Ferris sets a honey trap for the bad guy, we get satellite tracking of every violent scene, and things do get tense after a while. And Ferris himself begins to question why he is doing this kind of work . . .
The trouble is the inability of American writers to convincingly portray the Arab world. Everything seems realistic, the treatment seems somewhat even-handed, the plot may well capture the nature of a terrorist cell and counter-insurgency, but, but, but, something smells from the start. It’s as if the plot was drawn up as ‘good guy versus bad guy,’ shuffled up to add shades of grey to the angels and positives to the devils, and then transplanted onto an evocative Middle Eastern locale. I found myself manipulated and abused, and comparing Body of Lies to all the other terrorism-thriller flicks put out over the last half decade. Other than a welcome dash of humanity added by DiCaprio’s nuanced acting, the stakes feel meaningless and the film limps towards its deja vu ending. So . . . most competent but quite wasteful of a viewer’s time.