Everything in this life is summarized by titles. Consider
the school days, where it is customary to give titles like Mr. Stud, Ms.
Photogenic, etc to every student. Your English teacher must have taught you
about the importance of ‘titles’ when writing essays and blogs. Some days back
I read a book ‘Joker in the Pack’ and understood the meaning of title only
after completing 90% of the book and boye! it was apt(Bad reader I am)
‘Body of lies’ is too a strange title when you evaluate it
from its trailers. From trailers it looks like an espionage killer thriller(‘spy
game’ types). But again DO go by the title when you go for it…
Movie has two great actors; Russell Crowe(Ed) and **Leonardo
DiCaprio**(Roger). Plot wise, not much new is there in it. Russell Crowe works
for CIA(Los Angles) and gives directions to DiCaprio(his CIA operative in Iraq, Jordan,
Dubai, Syria, etc etc). Movie does revolve
from one country to other to another symbolizing geographical reach of terror.
DiCaprio is given assignments by his boss and after his initial assignment in Iraq, is sent to Jordan to get Al Salim(head of a
terror group). There he seeks help of Jordan’s GID(general intelligence dept.)
to nab Al Salim. Meanwhile Ed plants another operative thereby jeopardizing the
plan and getting Roger hurt. Roger while getting the treatment becomes
affectionate towards the nurse. Then there are more plans to nab Al Salim which
flop….In the climax, the nurse is taken up by Al Salim’s men and wants Roger in
return. Rogers
agrees and as he is to be executed, SOMEBODY(not me) saves him…Who?…find out.
In addition, movie has some high intensity nasty dialogue-baazi in it. There are dialogues which may sound provocative to
some; for example ‘**He wants to come
America in one piece and go to heavens in thousands’, ‘He is the one who touches his head 4-5 times a day**’ and few more. One scene which caused the whole audience to applaud happened when the Al-Salem men foxed American spy-satellites in the middle of the desert.technolgies cannot outdo everybody(a reminder!)
Castwise this movie attracts two very famous men of Hollywood. Both have done
legendary movies in past and are great crowd pullers. Crowe in this movie looks
mighty fatty and carries a strange nerdy look(one who can live without oxygen
but not without specs and earphones). Denzil Washington or Bruce Willis could
have easily replaced Crowe here. On the contrary, DiCaprio is fantastically
shot. He runs, he kills and he acts brilliantly. Though one might fear about
him going for stereotyping killer roles(THE DEPARTED, BLOOD DIAMOND).
A special mention for Mark Strong(played head of Jordanian GID). An amazing scene presence and emotionless dialogue delievery made him at par with the other two actors.
If you like kills, thrills, bombs, guns, bullets, spy satellites and offcourse, the
two legendry men…go for it
JUST REMEMBER!
“Nobody’s innocent in this shit”