Look forward to thrills and if done right a nice two hour ride of entertainment. This is done right! Lets all acknowledge that our favorite stars are giving their best here as well as the Director. This team pulls off telling a good story that is believable and tense. The viewers attention span is never abused and there are some scenes that reach out and grab you and wont let go a good thing. Its interesting to note how powerful and respected (as well as hated) the CIA is. This organization can go into a country and wreck havoc and leave before that country even knows what hit it. This accounts for such hatred around the world for America. We use these forces and other special forces to make sure we get what we want just like the other fellow only we do it better. I particularly liked the use of Drones in this movie which demonstrate just how effective and powerful they are and will continue to be. There is no defense against them and they can be used for so many reasons. Right now we have superiority in this technology but it wont last. However look for anti-drone technology to enter into the arms race. Note the street life of the Middle Eastern countries full of outdoor cooking, heavy traffic and people coming and going non-stop. Also consider how in certain parts of the certain cities how devastating a bomb blast would be and there is no prevention against it either. That's why retribution is swift on those that do this cowardly act. I also found it interesting and "true" of how miscellaneous people send email congratulations to bombers who do a good job of blowing something up encouraging and praising them in the name of Islam? Sad but true as with any ancient manuscript it can be twisted and turned inside out and away from its original intent especially when dark forces prevail. The real Truth cannot be so easily manipulated but people can when it is mixed with lies. Keep this in mind the next time hindsight visits with you. Its telling you what you didn't know or do or not do after the fact proving that we know not what we do and need insight above all things. The world suffers from a lack of insight nicely portrayed in this movie as a reminder. Enjoy a hearty sandwich with a tasty drink and a snack is a must have or you may fidget or bite nails at some point of the thrill riding here. Enjoy

I didn't realise until the end of this film that Body Of Lies was based on a book - given the nature of the story it could quite easily have been based on true events. Having said that, in hindsight, it's quite easy to see that a film like Body Of Lies could have been based on a book and with a film like Body Of Lies it just goes to show that sometimes things that work on the page don't necessarily work on the screen...Body Of Lies is about a CIA operative working on the ground who is tasked with flushing out a terrorist whom is committing acts of terrorism in various locations (mostly across Europe). The CIA operative on the ground is Roger Ferris (Leonardo Di Caprio) whom with the help of his boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) and head of Jordanian intelligence Hani (Mark Strong) all work together to bring this terrorist kingpin to justice...Despite big names like Russell Crowe and Leonardo Di Caprio and a credible director like Ridley Scott what you basically get here is a 2 hour sightseeing tour; you'll see the Netherlands, England, USA, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, Turkey; there may have been more countries, but I lost track after a while. Each of these countries seem to be there to piece this ridiculous jigsaw together, but each of these little threads is given so little bearing that it becomes very difficult to follow what is happening and to a lesser extent actually care what is happening. Crowe's character is a bit of an oddity as he seems to be back in the US in one scene and then in the next scene he's in the Middle East and then again he's back in US and back in the Middle East?? Surely all this travelling would take its toll on Crowe's character, but the screenplay dictates otherwise and Scott carries on regardless..The performances are as good as can be expected and Di Caprio proves here that he is versatile enough to take on any project. Crowe is a good foil to Di Caprio and plays off him very well. Mark Strong is very good (I didn't realise it was him till I looked at the cast on IMDb). He's a spooky looking doppelganger for Andy Garcia in this film and is easily the best thing about this film.There are some plus points here and in fairness Scott is fairly good at staging some of the action; the early sequences are excellent and at an early stage Scott does a good job at throwing us into the horrors of war. On another note, Scott also doesn't hold back with the violence and some of the things that happen to Di Caprio at the end are pretty brutal and Scott bravely chooses to keep these things on camera so be warned that you'll need a strong stomach for some of the later scenes.Body Of Lies isn't a bad film and Scott injects just about enough pace and action to make it watchable, but the episodic and rather convoluted nature of the narrative makes it a film that is rather forgettable and hard to care about (which is a shame because given what has happened in recent years in the UK - the London bombings and the Manchester Arena bombings then it is clearly a film of social importance). However, despite its message, I found that Scott overdid it here and felt that there was too much going on and unfortunately I just didn't find it particularly gripping or compelling.

In this convoluted story of Leonardo DiCaprio as an anti-terrorism agent doing the wet work for the CIA in Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East, the chief distinction is between DiCaprio on the one hand, getting his hands dirty among the dust and squalor of cities like Aman, Jordan, and Russel Crowe, the savvy and dispassionate controller back in Washington, playing with his kids in the backyard and doing the laundry while issuing orders over his phone headset. They're friends, in a frosty kind of way, but part company, so to speak, at the end. That's after Crowe's promise of protection fails, DiCaprio is kidnapped by the jihadists, has a couple of fingers turned into road kill with a ball peen hammer, and falls in love with a nurse in Jordan, Golshifteh Farahan.Now, first of all, it's easy to see how DiCaprio would be captivated by Golshifteh Farahani. She is very appealing. The actress was born in Iran and has lived in Paris. Her native Farsi is overlaid with French harmonies and it turns her euphonious English into a melody. It's not an inept trope since Farahani is also a practiced musician and has performed with professional bands. DiCaprio is like one of those anthropologists who has "gone native" and refuses to come home. He grows to like the Middle East, represented by his girl friend, but I would have been turned off by her once she began administering the traditional course of treatment for rabies -- shots right into the abdominal cavity. I'd rather have the rabies.There has been a spate of movies about gathering intelligence and operating against jihadists or war lords in the Middle East lately. Surprisingly, most of them are pretty good -- especially "Blackhawk Down" and the two directed by Katherine Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty." This one is more cynical than most. It has a modicum of action and is filled with suspense.Worth seeing.

Body Of Lies is certainly a film about the world since that event. It's based on a 2007 novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who has reported extensively on the Middle East. It's not acknowledged but I suspect both book and movie are also influenced by the recent rash of spy-and-tell books by former CIA agents. The best known of these is by Robert Baer, who left the agency in 1997 after 20 years. Baer was considered one of the best field officers in the Middle East. One of his complaints about the CIA was that it neglected real spy work on the ground in favor of electronic intelligence. It's more of a respectable second-rank thriller - intelligent but muddled, action-packed but thoughtful.