![]() ![]() ![]() It's a stolid effort with lots of interesting details about the production and Ignatius' sociopolitical insights.Īctionable Intelligence: Deconstructing Body of Lies is a staggeringly thorough documentary split into nine Focus Points (totalling 1:19:26, HD) accessible either by a pop-up icon during playback or from the menu. A powerful Dolby TrueHD 5.1 will rock your living room with the frequent action sequences dialogue thankfully is never sacrificed in the mix.įirst up among the bonus features is a serious-minded commentary by director Ridley Scott, screenwriter William Monahan and author David Ignatius. Accurately recreating the film's theatrical look, the picture is nicely detailed and finely tuned to Scott's post-production-tweaked color schemes black level is rock solid, and there's no sign of distracting dirt, though edge enhancement is evident throughout. Warner's tremendously in-depth special edition of Body of Lies begins with a fine A/V presentation. In the end, Body of Lies washes away without leaving much of a lasting impression, but if you’re going to have a mall-ready entertainment about the war on terror, you might as well have this one, which has the wit to show Crowe making life-and-death national security decisions from the sidelines of his daughter’s soccer game.Īudio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 We’ve seen many of these elements before, particularly in the Tom Clancy-derived movies, but William Monahan’s script and Scott’s budget allow for big action setpieces-small-scale battles, "surgical" bombings, and armed raids (all with shattering explosions)-as well as the requisite moral quandaries about just what we think we’re doing in the Middle East, and why. You Americans are incapable of keeping a secret because you are a democracy." Meanwhile, Ferris puts the moves on a Muslim nurse Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani) who he meets not-so-cute after being injured on the job. ![]() As Salaam puts it, "Real intelligence operations remain a secret forever. intelligence agents-issues that Ferris will be forced to test further. Though he calls Ferris "my dear," the urbane Salaam has understandable trust issues with U.S. With terrorist mastermind Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul) as the target, Ferris offers Hoffman a plan: work with Jordanian intelligence chief Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) to flush out Al-Saleem with phony intelligence. To Ferris, these are dangerous games, with the lives of innocents at stake. To the cold, callous Hoffman, these are games, and if he keeps his overseers believing he's essential to stay in them, he's won. The suits don't get that all the cell phones and satellite imaging in the world (though they make it a small world, after all) won't stop radical terrorists from doing an end run around technology, with, say, a personal handoff of intel. ![]() Back in the control rooms of Langley, technocrat Ed Hoffman (Crowe) ignores Ferris' advice and blithely hands down orders. It's not just a martyr complex: Ferris has taken the time to learn Arabic, he knows the lay of the land, and he has a knack for troubleshooting on a personal level. Of the many post-9/11 thrillers, this story of a lone wolf CIA operative in the Middle East and his unfeeling handler back in the States comes closest to being a traditional war movie for the untraditional “war on terror.”ĭiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, a perpetually ticked-off CIA agent entrenched in the field. It’s made with skill all around, and yet it lacks any spark of brilliance. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)īody of Lies is pretty much exactly what you would expect of an international espionage thriller directed by Ridley Scott and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. ![]()
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