BODY OF LIES - Blu-ray review

"Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return." --W.H. Auden

It's hard to think that the combination of actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott wouldn't produce anything but a winning motion picture, but, in fact, the 2008 espionage thriller "Body of Lies" lost quite a bundle at the box office. Is it just a bad film, or were there other factors in play? Well, it certainly isn't a bad film. So I tend to go with the "other factors" theory, and I wonder if the viewing public hadn't just gotten fed up with espionage thrillers after a recent spate of them in 2007 and 2008. Insofar as "Body of Lies" is concerned, it's a respectable spy film, with plenty of thought and action, transferred to Blu-ray disc in terrific high-definition picture and sound.

As I say, you couldn't ask for a better filmmaking team for the project. The co-producer and director, Ridley Scott, gave us such fan favorites as "Alien," "Blade Runner," "Thelma & Louise," "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down," "Kingdom of Heaven," and "American Gangster." The screenwriter, William Monahan, gave us "Kingdom of Heaven" and "The Departed." And Monahan based his script on a 2007 novel by David Ignatius, a Washington, D.C. journalist and authority on international affairs. If the film fails to ignite fully, it isn't for lack of talent or lack of trying. Indeed, it may be that the filmmakers tried too hard to produce a straightforward action film with serious topical overtones and wound up making a film that seems too earnest for its own good. "Body of Lies" is neither a great action yarn in the tradition of a Bond or Bourne film nor as thoughtful a spy film as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" or "Syriana." It's kind of in between, and as such never quite satisfies a viewer's longing for something more.

DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, a young, idealistic CIA field agent stationed in the Near East. He does the grunt work on the ground while his boss, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), gives him directions from the comfort of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Ferris is working on a mission to capture a terrorist chief known as Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul), whose organization is blowing up targets throughout Europe.

As DiCaprio often does, he plays an upstanding character intent on doing the right and honorable thing at all times, which sometimes goes against the grain of his boss, who is more coldly pragmatic. One sees echoes of DiCaprio's characters in "Blood Diamond" and "The Departed" in Roger Ferris. I don't particularly care for many of DiCaprio's heroes, but he is a personable and likeable enough actor, and his characters always prove resourceful and resilient. It's hard to fault DiCaprio's characters' noble intentions or the actor's sincere attempts at bringing them to life.

Of more interest, however, is Crowe's Ed Hoffman. Hoffman is a former field agent who has crossed over to the security of an office job and now heads up the CIA's Near East Division from a cushy chair in the States. While Ferris has a conscience and, thus, cannot always stomach the work he has to do, Hoffman is practical to the point of being insensitive, even ruthless. He watches his men at all times from an eye-in-the-sky satellite, and he moves them around like so many chess pieces on a playing board. If he needs to sacrifice a piece now and then, well, so be it.

Crowe gained a good deal of weight for the role of the deskbound Hoffman, weight that he apparently had trouble shedding in real life. So, don't expect the usual trim-and-ready Crowe here. He's supposed to look pudgy, and he is. The film intends for us to see his character as a man dedicated to winning the war on terrorism at all cost, so lives, no matter whose, don't mean a lot to him. Expect Hoffman to be a rather cold fish, a once energetic man now lazy, casual, and generally gone to pot.

Ferris faces four major conflicts in the story, which are probably three too many. First, he is in conflict with the terrorist organization he's out to destroy. Second, he is in conflict with Hoffman with how best to carry out his assignments. Hoffman invariably asks Ferris to do things Ferris finds reprehensible. Compounding the problem, Hoffman never always confides to Ferris the exact nature of their missions. Third, Ferris is in conflict with the head of Jordanian Intelligence, a slick fellow named Hani (Mark Strong). Hani reminds one of an Arabic Andy Garcia character: handsome, well dressed, charming, but with a hint of the unsavory about him. Can a person trust him? Hoffman tells Ferris outright not to trust him, even though he has to work with him. And, fourth, Ferris is in conflict with a beautiful young nurse he meets and likes, Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani), in conflict because of their cultural differences and because of other problems that arise in the film's climax.

"Body of Lies" comes across better than a lot of the post 9/11 espionage films that Hollywood made in the ensuing years, films like "Lions for Lambs," "Rendition," and "Redacted," yet it still doesn't come to life and grip the viewer the way it should. There is surely enough action, but maybe the problem lies with the film being too long and too detailed for its subject matter. The thing is, for all its seeming complexity, "Body of Lies" is actually a fairly matter-of-fact spy story; yet the filmmakers stretch it out to 128 minutes. It's only in the final half hour that matters get really tense, and that's after an hour-and-a-half of what is essentially all exposition.

Using only Morocco for their overseas location shooting, the filmmakers turn the country into Manchester, England; Samarra, Iraq; Amman, Jordan; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Dar'a, Syria. It's fun to have Ferris globe-trotting all over the Near East, but it makes for a somewhat diffuse plot, too. He's here, he's there, but it really all comes down to that last half hour.

Clearly, director Scott and author Ignatius wanted their movie to explore the nature of trust. Can you trust your informants? Your colleagues? Your boss? Your friends? Your country? That intellectual element of trust is all well and good, but it rather falls to the wayside in favor of the movie's straight-out action most of the time. Still, even though "Body of Lies" deals with a lot of minutiae that the filmmakers might have considered excising in favor of a more focused narrative, the result is never tiresome. I enjoyed most of the film, especially in its high-def transfer.

Video:
I can't imagine anyone complaining about the video quality on this Blu-ray disc; it's among the best I've seen in the transfer of a live-action movie. Warners reproduce the 2.40:1 ratio picture using a VC-1, 1080p encode and a dual-layer BD50 with excellent results. Director Scott, as is his wont, prefers a dark color palette favoring blacks, blues, and grays. Still, there is remarkably good detailing even in the dimmest areas of the screen. Faces can sometimes appear a little too dark, but most of the hues show up looking quite natural. Definition is also generally good, although facial nuances seem soft at times. While there is a fine film grain one notices, the screen is often almost too clean, making one question whether the video engineers didn't use a touch of noise filtering to smooth things over. No matter; the strong black levels bring out the colors when they do come into play, and sharp contrasts offer up a vivid screen image. If you don't believe just how detailed the picture can be, try comparing it, if you can, to the regular standard-definition version side-by-side. In high def, you can see every pebble in a desert landscape distinctly; in standard-def, even as good standard-def as Warner's SD disc is (and upscaled), the pebbles are a comparative mass of blur.

Audio:
As we find so often on a WB high-def disc, there are two English soundtracks offered in the menu, lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and regular lossy Dolby Digital 5.1. That's well and good, since a BD disc requires a regular DD track along with TrueHD; otherwise, people without TrueHD playback capability wouldn't get any sound at all. I continue to wonder, though, why Warners insist on making the lossy track the default. As I do so often, I forgot and was at least ten minutes into the film before I remembered to switch to TrueHD; it ticked me off to say the least.

Anyway, the TrueHD is as ideal an audio track as you'll find for an action movie. Bass thunders; the surrounds disperse sound widely from all directions; the midrange is realistically balanced and never presents a problem being heard or understood; and the dynamic range is all one could ask for. You hear the noises of helicopters, explosions, gunshots, automobiles, crowds, you name it coming from all directions, with an impact and authority that makes it seem as though you're on the very spot of the action. It's always fun when every speaker is firing smoothly and solidly, yet we hear nothing that seems overdone, nothing to make the eardrums bleed as we find in so many contemporary action films. Scott has always known what he's wanted in the audio department. By comparison, the regular Dolby Digital sounds slightly brighter and edgier, with a touch less impact overall.

Extras:
Warner Bros. are offering "Body of Lies" in four configurations: standard-definition full-screen and widescreen editions with no bonus items beyond scene selections and language choices; a standard-definition widescreen Special Edition with several bonus items; and the BD edition reviewed here, with the bonus items from the Special Edition plus several others exclusive to the Blu-ray disc.

First up, as expected, we get an audio commentary, this one by director Ridley Scott, screenwriter William Monahan, and author David Ingatius. Following that is a series of nine featurettes called "Focus Points: Actionable Intelligence: Deconstructing Body of Lies" (HD). They cover most of the key filmmaking processes from costumes to stunts to locations, etc. Altogether, they total about eighty minutes, and you can watch them either during the film, clicking on icons when they come up, or individually from the main menu. Next, there is another series of featurettes, these called "Interactive Debriefing," which are interviews with the director and stars on a various film-related topics. Then, there are five deleted scenes with an introduction by the director and optional commentary (HD). They total about fifteen minutes and include an alternative ending.

The extras conclude with a bonus digital copy disc, compatible with iTunes and Windows Media devices; thirty-three scene selections but no bookmarks; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese spoken languages; French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; and a slipcover to tie it all together.

Parting Thoughts:
Here's the thing: We expect more from Ridley Scott, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Russell Crowe than we get in "Body of Lies." Although the movie is a serious attempt to represent the subject of real-life espionage in today's Middle East as excitingly as possible while at the same time explore the nature of trust in one's government and trust in one's friends, the movie never really catches fire until the very end, and the end is a long time coming. It isn't a boring movie--no Ridley Scott movie is ever boring--it just often seems lukewarm and a lot longer than it needs to be.

Fortunately, it's saved on Blu-ray disc by the excellence of its high-definition picture and sound, which go a long way toward maintaining one's sometimes flagging interest.