Friday, June 19, 2009

Body of Lies

(Movie Review)

This is yet another movie which seeks to create interest by being topical. (Due to the hype surrounding the release of this film, I'm sure you that know by now whether you've seen the film or not).

The politics never go too deep, but I thought it was a decent suspense story.

The film is set up as a kind of triangle of suspicion. There's a CIA field agent on the ground (Leonardo Dicaprio), his boss back in Washington (Russel Crowe) and the head of Jordanian intelligence.
None of them really trust each other, and all of them play off the other for their own purposes.

The dialogue in this movie is poorly written and boarders on cliche, but I thought the plot was decent. It's a thinking man's suspense film, that requires you to watch it closely in order to keep track of the plot.

For me the most interesting part of this film was watching the DVD commentary.
David Ignatius, the Washington Post reporter who wrote the book on which this movie was based, talks about what in the movie is based on truth, and what is based on fiction. And, although everything in this movie is hollywoodized up a lot, a surprising amount of the events in the movie, and the operation procedures of the Jordanian intelligence, are based on incidents in real life.
So if you do go out and rent this movie, by all means make sure and listen to the DVD commentary as well.

Link of the Day
Prof Noam Chomsky on religion
and Abortion seen through the eyes of the rightwingoverse.

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