Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies is a CIA action thriller that hits all of the marks you would expect from an experienced director with two heavyweight actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe (for whom the pun is intended). 
We’ve seen our fair share of derivative Iraq war fictions, and while this one may have been lost in our collective ennui about Iraq (shocking, but true), the film is far enough removed from the subject to allow a few fresh – or at least freshly presented – ideas to surface. The title doesn’t exactly fit the film’s story, but it reflects a couple of key themes in the film: that the truth is illusive to all of those involved in terrorism and anti-terrorism, and, more disturbingly, each side feels justified in obscuring the truth to serve its ends. Closer to the surface, we get to see Crowe play the poster child against multi-tasking and see DiCaprio get wounded, bloodied, and bruised like he never has before. In both cases I think Scott should have exercised a little restraint, as Crowe especially treads close to the boundary between character and caricature.
This is film I probably would have skipped (as many did at the box office), but it impressed me enough to be glad to have been given it to watch. Of particular note are the performances by (and screenwriter William Monahan’s writing of) Mark Strong as Jordanian intelligence chief Hani Salaam and Golshifteh Farahani as DiCaprio’s love interest, Aisha. Both are actors I had never notice before, but I will be keeping an eye out for them in the future.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
2 responses so far ↓
1 ali // Jul 27, 2009 at 4:22 am
hello your weblog is very good
i am from iran like Golshifte Farahani and she is my favorite actress.she is a superstar in iran but she was annoyd because of taking off her scarf in red carpet. i love her
2 david // Jul 29, 2009 at 9:11 pm
She seems quite talented. Are there other films of hers you would recommend?
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