Body of Lies (No Spoilers in OP)

Cafe Society
1

I liked it better than American Gangster, but I wasn’t completely comfortable with DiCaprio in the lead role. He certainly has the acting skills for the part, but he doesn’t look weather beaten enough for it, IMHO. This is not a “light” movie, by any means, not only is the subject matter weighty, but the film takes twists and turns with the plot, so if you can’t spare the brain power to handle something like Syriana, this ain’t the movie for you.

The trailers I saw for the film made it appear to be a rather narrowly focused film, with DiCaprio’s character dealing with an uncaring boss (played by Russell Crowe, who seems to have a bit of a Georgian [the state, not the country] accent) in how an operation should be carried out. There is some of that in the film, but the film’s real focus is on the Mid-East as a whole, and not just one narrow part of it. This causes there to be a number of threads running through the film, and some of them get dropped rather abruptly (which is a deliberate point on the part of the film, and not simply bad scriptwriting), and I would have liked for some of the threads to have been expanded upon. (Ideally, what should happen is that we get films by other film makers which address the other aspects. Like how Saving Private Ryan dealt with the European theater of WWII, while Flags of Our Fathers dealt with the Pacific. This movie makes it clear that there’s a wealth of material to be mined.)

I don’t know, but it looked like some of the desert scenes were shot in the American Southwest. At one point, the characters were in a rather bleak section of desert and I turned to my buddy and said, “Where’s the Mars rovers?” After the movie, my buddy said, “Ya gotta ask: Why the hell are people so obsessed with that part of the world? It looks like a barren shithole!”

Two things about the film annoyed me. One is that many of the explosions were obviously CGI “enhanced” (not quite the level of the smoke ring coming off the Death Star blast, but close). The other is that in some of the scenes the muzzle blasts and bullet strikes looked to be circa 1970s TV level effects (i.e. poorly hand drawn animation).

There’s a lot of tension in the film, not only between characters, but also in the situations, and you really don’t ever get a “good” tension breaker in the film, which I’m sure is a deliberate act on the part of Scott and the scriptwriters. They’re definately trying to start a dialogue with the film, lets hope that people pick up on it.

2

I thought DiCaprio did a reasonably good job. Crowe too. The overall ‘feel’ I had was it was similar to “Enemy of the State” with all the satellite doings.

I believe parts of it were filmed in Morocco(the square mosque minerete in the backgound if the souqs is in Marrakesh)

3

The film was OK and DiCaprio and Crowe were good.

Still, this film didn’t particularly stand out and now, just two days after seeing it, is already starting to blur with all of the other “terrorists in the Middle East” films of late.

If you ask me the plot in a month, I am sure I will be confusing it with the film Traitor with Don Cheadle.

4

I haven’t seen it yet, but want to.

Is it overly long? So many of these types of movies would benefit from 30 minutes of editing.

5

Its not a short movie, but it doesn’t “feel” long. I checked my watch a couple of times during the flick, not because I was bored, but because I was curious about how long it had been running. There’s no shots in the flick that are done just because they look pretty, or scenes of characters just staring at the camera looking angsty. I can’t really think of anything that needed to be trimmed from the movie for reasons of plot or running time. I would not recommend getting the 55 gal. drum of Slurm at the concession stand before the movie, as if you have to duck out to take a leak, you might very well miss something important.

6

Oh yeah… Mark Strong as Hani. Yowza! My Dear;)

7

I just saw this.

Between GI Jane, Kingdom of Heaven and now Body of Lies, I somewhat get the feeling that I’m the only person who gets post-1995 Ridley Scott, either that or the only person with the same political leanings.

While I’d agree that the idea of espionage and terrorists in the Middle East aren’t original, there’s more to the story than the story.

Hoffman is shown in almost all scenes with his family, going around living the American life. He’s overweight, arrogant, and impatient. Why show him going around living life instead of being at an office? He doesn’t have any idea of life in the Middle East, the things that happen there are an intellectual game and really don’t have any effect on him or his kids (regardless that supposedly this is the fearsome enemy.) For the purpose of storytelling, he is America.

Hani Salaam is polite and straight, yet subtly untrustable, decadent, and way too focused on (his) rules and the punishment for breaking them–making it hard or even scary to try and be his friend. I presume him to represent either Jordan or the friendly segments of the Arab world in general.

If you watch the movie as an espionage thriller, I can see that it wouldn’t be too exciting or original, but really it’s a political argument fashioned into a story. Agree with the argument or not, but personally I found it to be well presented.

(And I encourage people to try the extended version of Kingdom of Heaven.)

8

Sage Rat, I quite agree. (And thank you for describing the film in a better manner than I could.)

9

Saw it last night and my initial impression was good - not great. But it’s staying on my mind. I agree it’s an argument crafted into a story but done well. I’m finding myself not at ease with the message.

24 hours later I say - very good.

10

The ending does not hang together for me.

[spoiler]IIRC, DiCaprio gets a phone call purportedly from the terrorists who abducted his girlfriend, which causes him to rush out to a meeting site, where he is whisked away by a caravan of terrorist vehicles in such a manner that the US satellites lose him. He is on the verge of being tortured/executed when the Jordanian intelligence service rescues him, thanks to the informant it had placed in the terrorist group.

Finally, we learn that the woman was abducted by the Jordanian intelligence service to make DiCaprio think that the terrorist group had taken her, so that DiCaprio’s capture would flush them out. Why is this necessary – if the Jordanians have an informant in the group, why doesn’t the informant just tell them where the terrorists are, without having to abduct DiCaprio? And how was it done – if the Jordanians abducted the woman and (presumably) made the phone call, how do the terrorists know to send a convoy of vehicles to the meeting place?[/spoiler]

11

Its quite possible that the informant in the group didn’t know where the higher ups were, but could get a message to them. Giving them DiCaprio’s character would raise his standings in the group, and put him in position to be in the interrogation room when DiCaprio gets his fingers amputated. A good covert operation (be it legit or terrorist) will keep the rank and file in the dark about the details of the higher ups, but allow them to pass important information on to them.

12

That’s possible; thanks.