Body of Lies

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Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac, Alon Aboutboul, Simon McBurney

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Playing at: SilverCity Ancaster, Upper James Cinemas Hamilton, Jackson Square Hamilton, SilverCity Burlington, SilverCity Oakville

Rated: 14A

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 spy craft, 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 fluent Arabic.

This is Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), in the war against a deadly terrorist organization (a double for al-Qaeda). His brainstorm is to fabricate a rival terrorist organization, a fictitious leader for it and use it to smoke out Al-Saleem, the secretive leader of the real terrorists (a surrogate for Bin Laden).

I can imagine a similar story as told by John le Carre, even right down to the local beauty. But le Carre would never be guilty of such preposterous thriller-style action. Here we have a spy who doesn't come in from the cold, crossed with Jason Bourne.

The most intriguing aspect of Ferris's activities is his growing disillusionment with them. He feels one local comrade has been abandoned to death, and after he sets up an innocent architect to unwittingly play the head of the fictitious terrorist agency, he single-handedly tries to save his life from an inevitable attack. That Ferris survives this man's fate is highly unlikely. And it leads to a situation where his own life is saved by the last-second arrival of the cavalry.

The movie depends on two electronic wonderments. One is the ability of Ferris to maintain instant cellphone contact with Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), back in Washington. Wearing an ear-mounted device, he seems to keep up a running conversation with his boss, even during perilous situations (his boss is often distracted by taking care of his kids).

The other wonderment is aerial surveillance so precise it can see a particular man walking down a street. The surveillance POV is so stable it's hard to believe it originates from a fast-moving high-altitude spy plane. In discussing Ridley Scott's superior Black Hawk Down, I questioned the infrared technology that allowed distant commanders to monitor troop movements on the ground. Many readers informed me it was based on fact. Perhaps the astonishing images in Body of Lies are accurate; if so, it's just a step to locating Bin Laden with an aerial eyeball scan.

Ferris' romance in Amman involves a pretty nurse named Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani), who cares for him after he nearly dies in a blast. (One nice touch: A surgeon removes something from his arm and explains, "Bone fragment. Not yours.") The movie is realistic in showing a Muslim woman's difficulties in dating a westerner; spying eyes are everywhere. It is less realistic in establishing why they are willing to take such a risk, since they're allowed no meaningful conversations to create their relationship. Aisha obviously exists as a convenience of the plot, and to set up the film's overwhelmingly unlikely conclusion.