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MOVIE REVIEW: Ridley Scott's 'Body of Lies'

Director's latest looks at war on terror

By Sonny Bunch (Contact) | Thursday, October 9, 2008

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Before the action starts in "Body of Lies," a few lines from W.H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" flash up on the screen:

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

After Sept. 11, this poem about Nazi aggression in response to the Treaty of Versailles was discussed widely. Director Ridley Scott's point in citing it is clear, here and throughout the movie: The West and the Muslim world are trapped in a cycle of violence, and terminating the cycle will be difficult (if not impossible).

The poem is an interesting choice because Mr. Auden himself would go on to repudiate its sentiments - he came to realize that his words were too quick to explain away Nazi aggression against Poland and the rest of Europe.

One wonders if Mr. Scott will feel the same way in his waning years.

"Body of Lies" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Roger Ferris, a CIA field agent intent on tracking down Osama bin Laden wannabe Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), a terrorist mastermind intent on detonating bombs across Europe and the United States. Tracking Ferris' progress is Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), the head of Near East intelligence, who understands the broader battlefield but has little feel for the situation on the ground.

The film opens with Ferris in hot pursuit of a terrorist safe house found after he cultivated a source too scared to go through with a "martyrdom operation." Though Ferris has offered the source asylum in the United States, Hoffman is content to leave the would-be terrorist to his fate. The stress between the two is palpable: Ferris wants to protect those he pumps for information, whereas Hoffman is happy to feed them to the wolves after getting as much intel as possible.

Hoffman is a pushy guy, used to getting his way with minimal resistance. Unaware of the proper etiquette for dealing with Middle Eastern leaders, he unwittingly hurts Ferris' relationship with the head of Jordanian intelligence (Mark Strong), then compounds the mistake by compromising a surveillance-infiltration mission.

He comes off as a cross between the stereotypical ugly American and an idealistic cold warrior; though his behavior is sometimes cringe-inducing, his motives are pure. He wants to save innocents and kill terrorists.

There's a similar tension at play in Mr. Scott's work. As his use of the Auden poem indicates, there's no doubt that this is a movie antagonistic to certain American attitudes and behaviors. Yet it's also a movie that recognizes the barbarity of radical Islam and the fact that those fighting terrorists do so because they're trying to save lives and stop atrocities. The choices made may be difficult, but they're decided in good faith.