Secrets and Lies
Body of Lies takes viewers on another trip to Ridleyland.
By Peter Suderman, October 9, 2008
Body of Lies, Ridley Scott's glossy, globe-hopping techno-thriller, is all over the map — literally. Like John McCain touting his foreign policy bona fides, it breezily checks off location after location: Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Dubai, Syria, even Washington, D.C. But despite traveling everywhere, it ends up going nowhere.
Instead, it stays firmly rooted in a single mythical movie locale: Ridleyland, the home country of director Ridley Scott. Ridleyland filters everything through the warm-hued, supersatured lens of a late-90s AT&T commercial. Ridleyland prizes tough, abstract pronouncements over conversation. Ridleyland blurs geographical distinctions; places become interchangeable with moods. It's the same vividly atmospheric movieworld in which Scott set American Gangster, Gladiator, and a host of others, a world that only exists on 35 millimeter. For Scott, home is where the lens is.
The script by Departed-scribe William Monahan, based on a novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, is just as hazy. CIA agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) gets a lead on a terrorist mastermind who may be operating out of Jordan. At the behest of Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), his Langley controller, Ferris sets up shop in the country and begins to work with a Jordanian intelligence officer named Hani (Mark Strong). The three form a sort of perfidious spy love triangle. Everyone's got an agenda, and they're all fluent in spy-movie mumbo jumbo.
Lies is awash in spook jargon and macho epigrams. Arriving in a new city, Ferris declares himself in need of "a s***, a shower, and an internet connection" (one hopes not all at once). Was there ever a more concise definition of modern man's necessities? As the remark makes clear, this is a techno-thriller, meaning you'll find laptops and server banks and wall-sized satellite displays aplenty. Everything is connected, except, presumably, the many plot threads the film leaves unraveled.
The characters, at least, think they've got it all under control. Crowe plays Hoffman as pudgy, frazzled, unkempt; he's a suburban dweeb who plans to rule the world from his Blackberry. He spends the bulk of the movie wandering through the wilds of suburban Virginia, conducting foreign operations via a permanently attached cell phone earpiece. He makes calls from youth soccer games, his backyard, a large nondescript lobby, a walkway overlooking a lake — but never once from an actual office. Seems all you need to run a major CIA division is a Verizon contract with lots of minutes.
With his slicked back vampire mop and patch of free-growing chin-scraggle, DiCaprio looks like a scruffy Eddie Munster. DiCaprio's well established as a leading man, but he still gives the impression of a surly high school senior trying to prove himself to a bouncer at a bar.
Pairing him with the older, studier Crowe would seem to be a mismatch, but DiCaprio and Crowe meet so rarely they seem to be in two different movies. The few times they do converse in person come off as contrived: Would a busy CIA handler really fly all the way to the middle east for a single sitdown with an agent he can — and does — talk to on the phone all the time?
But such questions presume making sense is a priority. Don't be fooled. Lies fancies itself a bold look at current frustrations with American foreign policy, so there are allusions aplenty to contemporary political conflicts. Ferris wants to work with the Jordanians; Hoffman simply wants to use them. Ferris prizes on-the-ground intelligence; Hoffman favors gathering data electronically. In both instances, we're supposed to side with Ferris, but the movie undermines itself. The Jordanians appear more than willing to manipulate situations to their own advantage, and it's difficult to trust techno-skepticism from a director so obviously enamored with cinematic gadgetry.
Scott, who has a background in art direction, is only really interested in snapping pretty pictures. He grooves on ambiance, not argument. His best works — Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator — overcome this by ignoring ideas in favor of aesthetics. Otherwise, what you're left with are slickly produced mediocrities, which is exactly what Lies is. There's no question Scott's got a grip on the best practices of Hollywood razzle-dazzle, but it's all just cover for the movie's underlying incoherence.
As one of the movie's CIA tech-geeks obliquely intones to DiCaprio (over a mobile phone, natch), "I can't say it's been real, but you know what I mean." Well, no. I don't — and I doubt Scott does either, though I'm sure he thought it sounded cool. There's nothing wrong with seeming cool, but it's an approach with limits. Indeed, Scott could probably learn a lesson or two from his own movie. Like everyone else in Body of Lies, he's a pawn, manipulating his way through something he only thinks he understands.
Peter Suderman is arts editor of Culture11.
Instead, it stays firmly rooted in a single mythical movie locale: Ridleyland, the home country of director Ridley Scott. Ridleyland filters everything through the warm-hued, supersatured lens of a late-90s AT&T commercial. Ridleyland prizes tough, abstract pronouncements over conversation. Ridleyland blurs geographical distinctions; places become interchangeable with moods. It's the same vividly atmospheric movieworld in which Scott set American Gangster, Gladiator, and a host of others, a world that only exists on 35 millimeter. For Scott, home is where the lens is.
The script by Departed-scribe William Monahan, based on a novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, is just as hazy. CIA agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) gets a lead on a terrorist mastermind who may be operating out of Jordan. At the behest of Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), his Langley controller, Ferris sets up shop in the country and begins to work with a Jordanian intelligence officer named Hani (Mark Strong). The three form a sort of perfidious spy love triangle. Everyone's got an agenda, and they're all fluent in spy-movie mumbo jumbo.
Lies is awash in spook jargon and macho epigrams. Arriving in a new city, Ferris declares himself in need of "a s***, a shower, and an internet connection" (one hopes not all at once). Was there ever a more concise definition of modern man's necessities? As the remark makes clear, this is a techno-thriller, meaning you'll find laptops and server banks and wall-sized satellite displays aplenty. Everything is connected, except, presumably, the many plot threads the film leaves unraveled.
The characters, at least, think they've got it all under control. Crowe plays Hoffman as pudgy, frazzled, unkempt; he's a suburban dweeb who plans to rule the world from his Blackberry. He spends the bulk of the movie wandering through the wilds of suburban Virginia, conducting foreign operations via a permanently attached cell phone earpiece. He makes calls from youth soccer games, his backyard, a large nondescript lobby, a walkway overlooking a lake — but never once from an actual office. Seems all you need to run a major CIA division is a Verizon contract with lots of minutes.
With his slicked back vampire mop and patch of free-growing chin-scraggle, DiCaprio looks like a scruffy Eddie Munster. DiCaprio's well established as a leading man, but he still gives the impression of a surly high school senior trying to prove himself to a bouncer at a bar.
Pairing him with the older, studier Crowe would seem to be a mismatch, but DiCaprio and Crowe meet so rarely they seem to be in two different movies. The few times they do converse in person come off as contrived: Would a busy CIA handler really fly all the way to the middle east for a single sitdown with an agent he can — and does — talk to on the phone all the time?
But such questions presume making sense is a priority. Don't be fooled. Lies fancies itself a bold look at current frustrations with American foreign policy, so there are allusions aplenty to contemporary political conflicts. Ferris wants to work with the Jordanians; Hoffman simply wants to use them. Ferris prizes on-the-ground intelligence; Hoffman favors gathering data electronically. In both instances, we're supposed to side with Ferris, but the movie undermines itself. The Jordanians appear more than willing to manipulate situations to their own advantage, and it's difficult to trust techno-skepticism from a director so obviously enamored with cinematic gadgetry.
Scott, who has a background in art direction, is only really interested in snapping pretty pictures. He grooves on ambiance, not argument. His best works — Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator — overcome this by ignoring ideas in favor of aesthetics. Otherwise, what you're left with are slickly produced mediocrities, which is exactly what Lies is. There's no question Scott's got a grip on the best practices of Hollywood razzle-dazzle, but it's all just cover for the movie's underlying incoherence.
As one of the movie's CIA tech-geeks obliquely intones to DiCaprio (over a mobile phone, natch), "I can't say it's been real, but you know what I mean." Well, no. I don't — and I doubt Scott does either, though I'm sure he thought it sounded cool. There's nothing wrong with seeming cool, but it's an approach with limits. Indeed, Scott could probably learn a lesson or two from his own movie. Like everyone else in Body of Lies, he's a pawn, manipulating his way through something he only thinks he understands.
Peter Suderman is arts editor of Culture11.
Rating:
Comments
| Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 Comments |
Clifton Chadwick
October 10, 2008 9:43 am
Interesting commentary. I hope to see the movie. I have read the book which is much better than what you explain here. I hope David Ignatius (who is quite well known in the Middle East) is not disappointed.
Cheers
Anonymous
November 3, 2008 7:40 am
Movies of lies. This movie is completely false.
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