" Body Of Lies" Review

Slug: Review
Headline: Body Of Lies
By Saloomeh Nakhsaz

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac
Directed by: Ridley Scott

“Body of Lies” is based on a 2007 novel by Washington Post foreign-affairs columnist, David Ignatius. This movie shows the CIA’s desperation in Middle East. Americans lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern culture and their ignorant attitudes make the CIA helpless in the Middle East ground despite of the fact that agency has many secret agents and high tech monitoring satellites installed all over the region.

“Body of lies” is a clever feature movie. The main characters played their parts incredibly well. The actors inhabit their characters very well and make them believable to the audience.

Leonardo Dicaprio plays Roger Ferris, the CIA agent in Iraq who speaks Arabic fluently and pretends he is from Baghdad. His next mission is to stop bombings by al-Salem, an al QAeda operative based in Jordan.

Roger is an idealist who is disappointed by the way America operates in the Middle East.
Roger believes that the head of Jordan’s secret service, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) has more power and intelligence to protect him than his CIA head master.
Hani Salaam doesn’t trust the CIA headmasters and operation is more dominant and influential than that of the CIA.
Hani Salaam finally uses Roger as bait to catch a bigger fish. He fakes the kidnapping of Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani) by terrorists in order to make Rogers contact with the al Salem and trace him to his hideout.
Aisha is an Iranian girl who lives in Jordan with her sister and works as a nurse in a medical clinic. Roger met her at the clinic where he went to get vaccinated after he got beaten by couple of real mad dogs. Aisha is the traditional Middle Eastern girl image shown to the world.
Roger tries to trace AL-Salem in order to save Aisha’s life, but he gets captured, and tortured by Al-Salem men, in the name of Islam.
Hoffman (Russell Crow) is the CIA’s spymaster. He has a wife and two children who instruct Roger how to perform, and when it’s an urgent situation, he flies out there and talks to Roger face to face and deals with issues in his own way. But Ed’s ignorance to Middle Eastern culture and his impatience make Hani Salaam not to trust Roger or any other American agent.
Ed Hoffman’s character is what the Middle Eastern people think of Americans.
He believes no one likes the Middle East and there is nothing in Middle East for any human beings.
In a conversation with his wife, when she asks Ed to come to bed, he tells his wife that he’ll come to bed as soon as he saves civilization.
He tells Roger that he is the only one who Rogers can trust but they both know that it’s not true.
Ridley Scott brilliantly shows the world’s true face beneath deception in the “Body of lies.”