Body of Lies (film)
Plot
Later, Nizar is used as a pawn to draw out the rest of his cell, which ends in him being captured and Ferris forced to shoot him before he can be taken away. Furious at Hoffman's refusal to act on the intel Nizar provided, Ferris goes off with his associate Bassam (Isaac) to search an area (Balad, Iraq), which Nizar indicated contained a safe house.
At Balad, Ferris notices the men there trying to burn their data and attempts to bluff his way in but is exposed. In the ensuring shootout and chase Ferris and Bassam's vehicle is hit by an RPG. Ferris and the bag containing the discs he managed to salvage are pulled out. However Bassam is left behind and perishes when the vehicle explodes
Ferris recovers from his injuries at a U.S. facility in Qatar before he is sent to Jordan to run down some intelligence he recovered in Iraq. Meanwhile, unknown terrorists plan to follow up off-screen bus bombings in Sheffield with more attacks in Manchester but blow themselves up when the police arrive at their cell.
Ferris, in Iraq, and Hoffman, in Langley, are strongly contrasting characters: Ferris acts on a human scale, relying heavily on trust and human intelligence. Hoffman is more Machiavellian. Despite their contrasting styles, Hoffman greatly respects Ferris, at one point telling him that he is his best agent.
Near the start of the movie, Hoffman is seen explaining to his CIA superiors that the terrorists' strategy against the U. S. is not to use technology in their day-to-day operations. This includes avoiding the use of cell phones and computers and, instead, communicating face-to-face and with written messages. Hoffman explains the terrorists' retreat to pre-tech age communication methods renders useless the technological tools the Agency uses to wage war against terrorists and increases his dependence on Ferris's human intelligence methods.
Recovered from his injuries, Ferris is assigned to Jordan to continue searching for Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul). He tosses the ineffectual Station Chief out of his own office and then meets with Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), head of the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID).
Hoffman finds an Al-Saleem safe house in Jordan and orders Ferris to conduct a surveillance operation on it covertly. Simultaneously, he organizes another operative Skip (Vince Colosimo) to conduct an operation without Ferris' consent. Skip botches the operation, blowing his cover by divulging compromising information to a terrorist from the safe house. As the terrorist takes off running, intent on releasing the information that the safe house has been compromised, Ferris makes chase: bitten by dogs in the run, Ferris ultimately kills the runner. Salaam covers up the killing by passing it off as a robbery, and Ferris accuses Hoffman of running "side operations", telling Hoffman to lay off. Tending his wounds in hospital, Ferris meets a nurse named Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani). Around them, the swirl of terror animating the action continues as a bombing in an Amsterdam flower market, triggered by a cell phone, kills at least 75 people.
Having recognized one of the men living in the safe house as well-known suspect Mustapha Karami (Kais Nashif), Salaam takes Karami out into the desert and coerces him into working for Jordanian intelligence, threatening to set him up as a collaborator if he does not cooperate. He has been sending money to Karami's mother and making it appear as if it came from her reformed and successful son, so she doesn't know Karami is still a thief and now an aspiring Al Qaeda terrorist, and he is shamed and surprised when Salaam does not kill him but lets him ride away on his bicycle.
Hoffman asks Salaam to hand Karami over to the CIA, most likely to interrogate him but Salaam refuses, having earlier told Ferris he does not believe in torture. Unknown to Ferris and Salaam, Hoffman tells Ferris' CIA subordinate to follow Karami and kidnap him. Karami gets away and notifies the terrorists in the safe house that it is being watched, resulting in the safe house being lit on fire and abandoned. Ferris's partner is caught and Salaam professes his belief that Ferris had knowledge of the move on Karami and therefore blames his lack of honesty with Salaam for the destruction of the safe house. He gives Ferris 12 hours to leave Jordan.
Ferris comes back to the States. Meeting with Hoffman, he comes up with a plan to find Al-Saleem by staging a fake terrorist attack, the idea being that, because of his big ego, Al-Saleem will try to make contact with the terrorist group that committed it. With the help of a non-CIA computer technician, Ferris has Omar Sadiki, an innocent Jordanian architect, made to look like the head of a terrorist cell.
Ferris has a terrorist attack staged at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. A bomb is exploded in the base and Ferris uses unclaimed local bodies dressed as soldiers to make it appear that U. S. soldiers were killed. Al-Saleem sees TV news coverage of the attack and takes the bait. Using an untraceable cell phone, he tries to contact Sadiki.
Salaam tells Ferris to come back to Jordan because he knows that he needs Ferris. Salaam then talks to Ferris about his suspicions that Omar Sadiki is a terrorist. Ferris does not reveal that this is not the case and acts as if he doesn't know anything concerning Salaam's suspicions. Ferris later tries to save Sadiki from being kidnapped by Al-Saleem's henchmen but fails and sees his partner nearly killed in the subsequent car crash. Sadiki informs Al-Saleem that Ferris made it seem he committed the terrorist attack. Sadiki is beaten and killed. Ferris goes back to his apartment and finds out that Aisha, in whom Ferris is romantically interested, has been kidnapped. He then desperately asks Salaam for his help, explaining to him that he made up Omar Sadiki's terrorist cell and the terrorist attack supposedly committed by Sadiki was faked. Salaam refuses to help Ferris because Ferris lied to him.
Ferris gets a call from the kidnappers and is told to wait for a van. The van picks him up and takes him to the desert. Meanwhile back at CIA headquarters, Hoffman is watching everything via an unmanned aerial vehicle. Ferris is then picked up by a group of men in SUVs, and the vehicles create a massive cloud of dust before splitting up. Hoffman is unable to follow Ferris because he has no idea which car he is in.
Ferris is taken across the border to Syria where he is to be interrogated by Al-Saleem. When Ferris asks Al-Saleem about Aisha, he is told that someone has lied to him and that he has been double-crossed. Ferris tells Al-Saleem that there is an infiltrator (Karami) in his organization who works for Ferris, and that, by association, Al-Saleem works for Ferris. Al-Saleem doesn't believe Ferris and smashes two of his fingers with a hammer before turning on a video camera and ordering Ferris to be killed. Al-Saleem then leaves. Ferris is prepared by Al-Saleem's men to be executed on video. As Ferris is about to be executed, Salaam and his team of Jordanian Special Forces burst into the room, killing all of the terrorists. Al-Saleem is seen leaving the building and unwittingly getting into a car driven by Salaam's men who arrest him.
While in the hospital, Ferris is visited by Salaam who reveals to him that it was his men who kidnapped Aisha, using blood she donated regularly at work to make it appear she'd been killed or wounded. He then brokered a deal with Al-Saleem (using Karami): he would deliver CIA agent Ferris to him for money. It was one of Salaam's men who rang Ferris and took him to the desert. Since Karami was Salaam's man inside Al-Saleem's organization, he was able to locate Ferris and Al-Saleem in time to save Ferris and arrest Al-Saleem. Aisha has been released unharmed but does not know what role her kidnapping played.
In the end Hoffman offers Ferris a job in his office, but Ferris declines and tells Hoffman that he is quitting the CIA. Hoffman prepares to leave Jordan and resigns himself to Ferris not changing his mind. At the movie's end, Hoffman is shown speaking with CIA operatives watching Ferris buying vegetables in the market, in a box similar to that which he had taken to Aisha's. Hoffman ends the observation and declares that Ferris is "done. He's all by himself."
Cast
- Leonardo DiCaprio as Roger Ferris, a CIA operative who is sent to Jordan.[2] DiCaprio chose to pursue the role because he considered it a throwback to political films in the 1970s such as The Parallax View (1974) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). DiCaprio dyed his hair brown, and wore brown contacts for the role.[3]
- Russell Crowe as Edward "Ed" Hoffman, a manipulative CIA boss who teams with Ferris.[2] Crowe gained 63 pounds to suit his role.[4] The actor said as a result of the film's exploration of the American government and foreign policy, "I don't think it will be very popular, but that’s never been part of my project choice process."[5]
- Golshifteh Farahani as Aisha, Ferris's nurse in Jordan. It is implied that Ferris and Aisha start a relationship during the course of the film.
- Mark Strong as Hani Salaam, head of the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID).[6] Strong ascribed his acquisition of the role to his performances in the 2005 films Syriana and Oliver Twist.[7]
- Vince Colosimo as Skip, Ferris's aide-de-camp in Jordan.
- Alon Abutbul as Kareem Al-Saleem, a powerful terrorist leader of an Al-Qaeda-similar organization.
- Oscar Isaac[8] as Bassam, Ferris's translator and partner in Samarra, Iraq.[9]
- Simon McBurney as Garland, a CIA computer whiz.[10]
- Ali Suliman as Omar Sadiki, an innocent architect used by Ferris as a pawn.[9]
- Kais Nashef as Mustafa Karami, Hani Salaam's mole in Al-Saleem's unit, a crucial element in the latter part of the plot.
Production
| “ | It's about Islam, where we are and where we're not, and it's a very interesting, proactive, internalized view of that whole subject. | ” |
Production took place in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.[13] Scott sought to film in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, but the federation's National Media Council denied the director permission due to the script's politically sensitive nature. As a result, scenes set in Jordan were instead filmed in Morocco.[14] Filming began on September 5, 2007 at the Eastern Market, Washington, D.C.[15] Part of Capitol Hill neighborhood was converted to resemble a wintry Amsterdam to film ten to fifteen seconds of a car bombing.[16] Filming took place in Gaithersburg, Maryland to stand in for Northern Virginia.[17] Locations in Baltimore also stood in for Manchester, England and Munich, Germany, although the final cut of the movie did not have any scenes that took place in Munich.[18] Production moved to Morocco afterward,[19] where a nine-week shoot took place at CLA Studios in the city of Ouarzazate.[20][21] Filming wrapped in December 2007.
Russell Crowe gained a significant amount of weight for the role and became rather overweight.[citation needed]
Music
The film score was composed by Marc Streitenfeld, who has now composed music for Ridley Scott for three features. He recorded the orchestral portions of his score at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Brothers Studios.[22] Of interesting note is the presence of a song in the film named "If The World," performed by Guns N' Roses, and taken from their long-delayed Chinese Democracy album. The track plays over the beginning of the end credits, but is not included on the official film soundtrack. Also Streitenfeld collaborated with Mike Patton and Serj Tankian for the song "Bird's Eye". Although this track was released as a single, it does not however appear on the soundtrack album.Release
Body of Lies has been reported as a film to screen out of competition at the 65th Venice International Film Festival in August–September 2008.[23] The film was commercially released in theaters in the United States on October 10, 2008.[24] The film has also been purchased by Turner Broadcasting System to screen on the television networks TBS and Turner Network Television.[25] There is also a track on the soundtrack featuring Serj Tankian and Mike Patton, a new song by Guns N' Roses "If The World" plays over the end credits.
The film was pre-screened on September 30, 2008 at Michigan Technological University,[26] and October 2, 2008 at Duke University, New York Film Academy, University of Maryland and University of Virginia. It was also pre-screened on October 3, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, at Michigan State University, at the University of Michigan, the University of Kansas, East Carolina University, and the University of Chicago on October 7, and at Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The University at Buffalo, Columbia University, James Madison University, Syracuse University, the University of Colorado, the University of Washington, and Georgia Southern University on October 9.
Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD and US Blu-ray Disc release of Body of Lies on 17 February 2009.[27]
Reception
Critical response
Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times concludes that "Body of Lies contains enough you can believe, or almost believe, that you wish so much of it weren't sensationally implausible." Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times reaches the same conclusion. "The skill of top-flight director Ridley Scott and his veteran production team, not to mention the ability of stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, ensure that this story of spies and terrorism in the Middle East is always crisp and watchable," he writes, "but as the film's episodic story gradually reveals itself, it ends up too unconvincing and conventional to consistently hold our attention."
Joe Neumaier writes in the New York Daily News that he has little patience for the routine nature of the spy flick and what "aims to be up-to-the-moment — yet feels same-old, same-old."
Lou Lumenick in the New York Post writes that, "There's nothing here we haven't seen in many other movies" and Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post chimes in: "Body of Lies is an A-list project with B-game results. The movie might be set in the Age of Jihad. But the rules of trust and mistrust are wholly familiar."
A.O. Scott in the New York Times writes that director Scott's "professionalism is, as ever, present in every frame and scene, but this time it seems singularly untethered from anything like zeal, conviction or even curiosity."
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