Body of Lies Movie Review

We saw Body of Lies on Saturday Night with Leonardo di Caprio and Russell Crowe. Amazingly enough, I was the one really pushing to see this action movie. Steve had read some negative reviews and didn't think it would be good, but it didn't take too much work to talk him into it, after all, what guy can turn down guns and explosions?

As usual I disagreed with the critics. Body of Lies was amazing! It was a CIA flick in the Middle East. Di Caprio is an agent who speaks Arabic and has a great understanding and empathy for the Arab world. Russell Crowe is his boss back at Langley who watches his every move on a massive wall to wall screen using helicopters and spy satellites.

There's some powerful cinematography with desert scenes full of swirling dust from speeding mercedes and surface to air missiles. Di Caprio is pretty good although his whole persona is a little too similar to the role he played in Blood Diamond and his romance with the Egyptian nurse is not really credible. The real star is Russell Crowe as a pudgy Machiavelian puppet master. He masterminds operations and makes life and death decisions from his cell phone while cheering on his kids at their soccer games with his easy Midwestern drawl. He is living the American Dream while waging a war to save America yet he ends up as the real villain.

Maybe the critics are getting tired of terrorism movies - but I'm certainly not. If they're half as good as Body of Lies - keep them coming!