Body of Lies

Movies about America’s war on terror have fared dismally at the box office. But if anyone can succeed in sexing up this subject matter, it’s Ridley Scott. He’s done it before with Black Hawk Down, salvaging a heroic action movie from the disastrous carnage of the U.S. Ranger’s disastrous 1993 mission in Somalia. With Body of Lies, Scott creates a rollicking spy thriller out from the rubble of the Iraq war. Body of Lies takes a departure from the recent spate of Iraq war movies, which seem designed to convey a dire political message. In this case, the main vehicle is entertainment. The political sentiments seem like an option, some custom upholstery designed to add an air of relevance to a slickly crafted piece of escapism that in the end seems meaningless. You get the impression Sir Ridley can do this sort of thing in his sleep. He’s been scarily prolific lately, churning out four movies in four years— Kingdom of Heaven, A Good Year, American Gangster, and now Body of Lies—three of them loaded with epic action.