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Body of Lies
Warner Bros. Pictures


8.5

based on 37 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 35 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence including some torture, and for language throughout

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac, and Simon McBurney

Roger Ferris is the best man U.S. Intelligence has on the ground, in places where human life is worth no more than the information it can get you. In operations that take him around the globe, Ferris' next breath often depends on the voice at the other end of a secure phone line--CIA veteran Ed Hoffman. Strategizing from a laptop in the suburbs, Hoffman is on the trail of an emerging terrorist leader who has orchestrated a campaign of bombings while eluding the most sophisticated intelligence network in the world. To lure the terrorist out into the open, Ferris will have to penetrate his murky world, but the closer Ferris gets to the target, the more he discovers that trust is both a dangerous commodity and the only one that will get him out alive. (Warner Bros.)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	David Ignatius (novel) William Monahan
DIRECTED BY:	Ridley Scott
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: October 10, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	128 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	English \| Arabic

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Body of Lies neither panders nor condescends. It involves current events and has a political viewpoint, but it overplays neither.

TV Guide Perry Seibert

The crisply photographed and edited Body of Lies reveals some ambition, for while it certainly works as pure entertainment, this tale of a good man trying to extract himself from an impossible situation offers some commentary on America's feelings about being in Iraq.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Its generic attributes (and title) notwithstanding, Scott's film may be the sharpest of all the post-9/11 thrillers--and also the most purely entertaining--in the way it maps the vectors and currents of the modern intelligence-gathering game without losing us in its dense narrative thicket.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Body of Lies is a James Bond plot inserted into today's headlines. The film wants to be persuasive in its expertise about modern spycraft, terrorism, the CIA and Middle East politics. But its hero is a lone ranger who operates in three countries, single-handedly creates a fictitious terrorist organization, and survives explosions, gunfights, and brutal torture.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The result is commendably non-West-centric, but no less sentimentally conceived.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Fascinating and flawed spy thriller.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It's not like the screens are so flooded with decent movies that we couldn't use another, particularly a timely, clear-eyed thriller about the Middle East and the role of the U.S. therein.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

As good as it is in pieces, its protagonists are distancing, its story is tangled, its film-noir cynicism is oppressive and unglamorous, and it just doesn't leave us with the satisfying unity of the kind of great movie it wants to be.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Leonardo DiCaprio brings straight-razor reflexes and rooted emotion to the role of a deceptively rugged CIA man.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's a genre film - the action is fierce and nonstop - with a brooding undercurrent of unease that aims for the complexities of John le Carre.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

With its urgent post-9/11 context and often brutal violence, it seems off-key to describe Body of Lies as a nifty political thriller, but that's what it is.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Always crisp and watchable. But as the film's episodic story gradually reveals itself, it ends up too unconvincing and conventional to consistently hold our attention.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

It may not be as much fun as old spy movies starring Cary Grant or more recent entertainments such as "Spy Game," directed by Ridley's brother Tony, but it feels all too accurate.

The New Yorker David Denby

The movie is smart and tightly drawn; it has a throat-gripping urgency and some serious insights, and Scott has a greater command of space and a more explicit way with violence than most thriller directors.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Ftrangely emotionless. There's little offered in the form of rooting interests or compassionate characterizations, making the film ultimately as ephemeral as its title.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Doesn't have much new to offer in either style or substance. It's got the same glossy-gritty urban warfare sheen as "Black Hawk Down" and every other Third-World geopolitical action thriller of the last few years.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A tautly paced, well-acted espionage thriller with the requisite explosions and action sequences. Still, it ends up leaving the viewer rather cold.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The romance seems tacked on as a way to humanize this character; there's no reason the nurse would take up with a brash, secretive American.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's a generic, clunky title. The movie isn't quite as disposable, but it's not exactly memorable, either.

Premiere Eric Kohn

Scott doesn't bring much to the table as an action director, and his keen storytelling abilities go invisible here.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The most interesting thing about this slick but frustrating picture is the way it puts Crowe’s Hoffman at the center of our mixed feelings.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The film has one indelible asset: Mark Strong, who plays the Jordanian spymaster Hani. He's sleek and lounge-lizard sharp like a young Andy Garcia, and he could be bigger than Garcia. The Jordanian holds all the cards, and opposite two superstars, Strong is the only actor who holds the camera.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A mostly formulaic approach that becomes more disappointing as the yarn unwinds.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

As it is, the movie is a hodgepodge of borrowings and half-cooked ideas, flung together into a feverishly edited jet-setting exercise in purposeless intensity.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

For all of Ferris's desperate struggles, and for all the director's efforts to emulate the remarkable verisimilitude he achieved in "Black Hawk Down," his new film remains abstract and unaffecting. It's a study in semisimilitude, more Google-Earthly than grounded in feelings.

Time Richard Corliss

In all, Body of Lies is a mixed bag of treats and trials, but it should be seen by audiences, and emulated and improved upon by other top directors.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The sickly feeling that Body of Lies leaves at its conclusion isn't just about the brutality of its subject; it's the realization that real-life barbarism translates so easily into adrenaline kicks for the multiplex.

Slate Dana Stevens

DiCaprio and Crowe, two supposedly high-wattage movie stars, are remarkably dull to watch together--perhaps because so many of their scenes together take place over the phone.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Aside from a nifty new way to avoid surveillance in the middle of the desert, there's nothing here we haven't seen in many other movies - including "Spy Game," directed by Scott's brother Tony before 9/11.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Lacks, a story that makes it feel personal.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Like Scott's last picture, "American Gangster," this is a little too slick and commanding for its own good; despite Crowe and DiCaprio's best efforts, their characters keep getting flattened by the steamroller narrative.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's a lot easier to follow than "Syriana." But intelligibility is about the only thing this international thriller has going for it.

Empire Ian Nathan

For all the enthralling visuals and action, the film feels garbled.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Depressingly inert.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Excessively intricate and extremely dull, the latest example of a filmmaker giving us a disjointed, overlong movie that’s unnecessarily confusing to follow.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

It's like torture, though Body of Lies has nothing to spill.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Most of this just seems, you know, so three years ago, so "Bourne" again.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 35 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Brian Y gave it an8:
This movie is as every bit entertaining as the Bourne series, but has a more current overlay with the war on terror. It has just as much or more suspense as Jaime Fox's The Kingdom, and performances from all the main characters are excellent. I highly recommend this movie, and urge all to forgo all the negative criticism, and be your own judge. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Lynn R. gave it an8:
This is an excellent movie-timely and with an interesting plot that makes you put yourself and your political ideals in context with the reality of the people on the ground. I agree that Russell Crowe is somewhat unbelievable, but, his performance makes you thinks instantly of Bush and his operatives and how closely to their lives any of the war really is-excellent performance by Mark Strong and DiCaprio is always excellent. The comments concerning the confusion over the "love interest" -he missed the point-the girl was the perfect foil to make us believe that DiCaprio's character cared about the real muslims and had a stake in the outcome of his mission beyond CIA success.

Greg A gave it an8:
This is a solid movie, DiCaprio just gets better and better, and Strong was very good. Crowe did a fairly ordinary job, I felt perhaps the role didn't suit him. In any case, this film puts the viewer right into the mix and is engaging right to the end (although somewhat predictable!).

Pamela H. gave it a10:
Leo always gives a stellar performance.

Dana M. gave it an8:
Very enjoyable movie. Worth seeing on the big screen. The acting was very good (not sure what other folks are saying). Definitely worth the ten bucks to see this film. Be prepared for some quezy torture scenes.

Bobwick H. gave it a7:
I can't imagine why this has gotten such a low critical reception. It has problems, but most of the complaints I'm reading are ridiculous. This movie is nothing like Spy Game and especially nothing like the Bourne series (not even the original one). If I had to compare this movie to any other, it would be to The Kingdom. And that's a favorable comparison. One person I think shouldn't have been in the movie at all, however, is Russell Crowe. Not only does he bring nothing as an actor, but his part in the story is equally pointless. Apparently he serves only as an outlet for DiCaprio's character's internal monologue, without which we would know nothing. Despite that, I still give the movie a solid 7.

Chad S. gave it a5:
The lonely person on the other end of the line wants to believe that the phone sex operator has her undivided attention on him alone. But that's just not the case. In Robert Altman's "Short Cuts", the jaded sex industry worker(played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), diapers her baby as she talks dirty to a client. Likewise, Ed Hoffman(Russell Crowe) achieves a seamless synchronicity between his professional and domestic life, too, tending to his young daughter while he's in communique with Roger Ferris(Leonardo DiCaprio), the man in the field, at the mercy of a disengaged partner, jaded, just like the sex hotline caller in the Altman film(based on the Raymond Carver short story collection). Film theorist Linda Williams, author of the essay "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess", explicates on how victimized women elicit a corresponding fluid in three interconnected genres of film: semen(pornography), blood(horror), and tears(melodrama). In "Short Cuts", the fetishized release of a fluid is coordinated by an empowered woman; the phone sex operator instigates the happy ending, not the man. Likewise, while Ed is obviously not a woman, he assumes the feminine side of the gender binary, since Roger is a man of action(masculine), not talk. Losing semen can't kill a man like how losing blood can. Ed's relative indifference for his partner has the potential to result in an unhappy ending(death, unlike the happy ending; the little death); the real-life horror of being martyred by the enemy at some undisclosed location. Contrary to the popular(and condescending) notion that a woman could never start a war, the primary quality associated with traditional(or is that reactionary) womanhood(femininity), until recently(as women in combat became more prevalent, therefore unfixing the masculine/feminine binary), has been the catalyst behind wars since time immemorial, when people like Ed stayed behind and allowed the real men do the dirty work. It's even worse here, since Ed gives Roger his marching orders in the informal setting of his home. Like a housewife, perhaps? In "Body of Lies", through a multitude of intertextual prisms, the filmmaker unconsciously suggests that the final destination point of the film body is not exclusive to the tyranny of male objectification.

Body of Lies Warner Bros. Pictures

Body of Lies
Warner Bros. Pictures