| | | Trust No One. Deceive Everyone.
Features: DVD
The CIA's hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency's man on the ground, moving from place to place, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. An eye in the sky -- a satellite link -- watches Ferris. At the other end of that real-time link is the CIA's Ed Hoffman, strategizing events from thousands of miles away. And as Ferris nears the target, he discovers trust can be just as dangerous as it is necessary for survival.Leonardo DiCaprio (as Ferris) and Russell Crowe (as Hoffman) star in Body of Lies, adapted by William Monahan (The Departed) from the David Ignatius novel. Ridley Scott (American Gangster, Black Hawk Down) directs this impactful tale, orchestrating exciting action sequences and plunging viewers into a bold spy thriller for our time.
"...neither panders nor condescends. It involves current events and has a political viewpoint, but it overplays neither." James Berardinelli's ReelViews
"...a timely, clear-eyed thriller about the Middle East and the role of the U.S. therein." Keith Phipps, The Onion A.V. Club
"...DiCaprio brings straight-razor reflexes and rooted emotion to the role of a deceptively rugged CIA man." Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
"...may be the sharpest of all the post-9/11 thrillers--and also the most purely entertaining..." Scott Foundas, The Village Voice
"...the action is fierce and nonstop - with a brooding undercurrent of unease that aims for the complexities of John le Carre." Ty Burr, Boston Globe
Editor's Note
Leonardo DiCaprio fights terrorists for the CIA in this rapid-fire thriller from director Ridley Scott (GLADIATOR, BLACK HAWK DOWN). While Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) gets his hands dirty on the teeming Arab streets, his handler Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) watches from Washington via spy satellite, cheerfully giving bull-in-a-china-shop style orders while picking up his kids from school. Innocent lives are lost, buildings blow up, and the threat of winding up beheaded on the internet is always one move away. LIES is decked out from front to back with fascinating bits of Arabic and espionage minutiae as it races along its wild mission to track down an elusive terrorist sect leader. Crowe has fun in his portly Southern-accented INSIDER mode, while DiCaprio does his usual anguished moral suffering over the fate of individuals (To Crowe's Hoffman, it's all just part of war and nobody's innocent). As the suave head of Jordanian intelligence, Mark Strong gives a scene-stealing, cobra-like performance that clashes beautifully with Crowe's "ugly American" bullying. The beautiful Golshifteh Farahani plays the obligatory love interest, the nurse who treats Ferris's regularly occurring battle and torture wounds. When most action heroes are completely healed within minutes of every fight, it's refreshing--in a grisly sort of way--to see how Ferris's wounds bruises pile up. The solid, punchy script is by William Monahan (THE DEPARTED) from the David Ignatius novel.
| Features | Audio Commentary By Ridley Scott, Screenwriter William Monahan & Original Novel Author David Ignatius | | Audio: English, French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Featurette: Actionable Intelligence - Deconstructing Body Of Lies - Key Sequences Are Explored In Depth Via On-Set Footage & Cast/Crew Interviews | | Includes A Digital Copy Of The Film For Portable Media Players! | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Body of Lies - Blu-Ray DVD Review By: Robert M. Barga - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 2/22/2009 11:06 PM | | In this day and age, it's hard to find a film about war, be it a real one or a covert one, without finding that it leans one way or the other on the issues. If you are talking about a real war situation, it's even harder to create that film without your bias showing. Many directors and screenwriters have attempted to do this with a whole slew of movies and only a few have succeeded. Director Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) and writer William Monahan (The Departed) hide their biases extremely well. Though do they occasionally crop up, Body of Lies is clear of most political and cultural biases, which is a good thing in a movie....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 11/10/2009 |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 1000040911 | | UPC: 00883929031566 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.40:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 4 -- "[BODY OF LIES] has the gritty feel of something observed firsthand. And the crafty script by DEPARTED Oscar winner William Monahan stays coiled and ready to spring." 10/16/2008 p.82USA Today
"BODY OF LIES is a tautly paced, well-acted espionage thriller with the requisite explosions and action sequences....[With] powerful performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Strong and Russell Crowe..." 10/12/2008 Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "With every minute that passes in Ridley Scott's talky political thriller, DiCaprio swells to fit the role, forced to bring his A-game by two heavyweight co-stars." 12/01/2008 p.50 Premiere
3 stars out of 4 -- "DiCaprio and Crowe are as solid as ever, but the cast standout is Mark Strong....[The plot] is fast and interesting enough to keep you thoroughly engaged." 02/17/2009 Entertainment Weekly
"[A] cat-and-mouse CIA thriller....Scott pulls off some tense action sequences..." 02/20/2009 Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
If you take a step back from the realistic locations and terse dialogue, Ridley Scott's "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. Oh, and he falls in love with a local beauty. And of course he speaks Arabic well enough to pass for a local...The acting is convincing. DiCaprio makes Ferris almost believable in the midst of absurdities; the screenplay by William Monahan, based on the novel by David Ignatius, portrays him as a man who grows to reject the Iraq war and the role of the CIA in it. Crowe, who gained 50 pounds for his part (always dangerous for a beer drinker), is a remorselessly logical CIA operative. I particularly admired the work of Mark Strong as the suave Jordanian intelligence chief, who likes little cigars, shady nightclubs and pretty women, but is absolutely in command of his job...The bottom line: "Body of Lies" contains enough you can believe, or almost believe, that you wish so much of it weren't sensationally implausible. No one man can withstand such physical ordeals as Ferris undergoes in this film, and I didn't even mention the attack by a pack of possibly rabid dogs. Increasing numbers of thrillers seem to center on heroes who are masochists surrounded by sadists, and I'm growing weary of the horror! Oh, the horror! - Roger Ebert
Reel.com 6 of 10
No matter the degrees of talent, filmmakers will always have difficulty overcoming a flawed script, and William Monahan's Body of Lies screenplay is broken beyond the point of repair. A bewildering mishmash of double-crosses, cover-ups, and cliches, Monahan's treatment unfortunately undermines some terrific performances and a solid effort by director Ridley Scott...Monahan has penned a land mine of confusion that blows this thriller to smithereens. Allies shift, rules constantly change, covers are blown, and safe houses are exposed. DiCaprio barks at Crowe for "interfering" in his mission, though we're often unclear what the mission was, how Crowe disrupted it, or even why he prevented Leo from accomplishing said goal. The only truthful thing I can tell you is that I never understood exactly what was happening, to whom it was happening, or even why...At least some came here to play. Lies features great work by director of photography Alexander Witt (American Gangster, Casino Royale), who peers through surveillance cameras and climbs to satellite-level heights to scan the arid deserts of Jordan (really Morocco). DiCaprio and Crowe are excellent, though each do completely different things for the good of the film. It's a beautiful sight seeing Crowe pack on pounds and hunch his dominant frame to portray a good-old-boy bureaucrat. Both megastars are upstaged by Strong, however. His Middle Eastern mafioso is silky smooth, intense, intelligent, and deadly. Look for him in an equally intimidating role as part of Guy Ritchie's cracking crime caper RockNRolla. - Sean O'Connell
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