BODY OF LIES  (MA) 
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe
Directed by Ridley Scott

The Middle East is tricky. We know this because Ed Hoffman says us much, arguing that the enemy has dumped technology and is virtually impossible to trace. His point is underlined when a bomb explodes in Manchester and another decimates Amsterdam’s flower market. So starts Ridley Scott’s brutal response to Syriana by way of The Kingdom.

Hoffman’s man on the ground is Roger Ferris, an honourable killer: part Bourne, part Bond. Linked by spy planes and mobile phones, they work from opposite sides of the globe to cut the invisible head from an invisible enemy.

Scott knows how to command attention and if Body Of Lies is anything, it’s attention grabbing. From gut-wrenching, bone-crunching violence to electrifying camera angles, there’s a lot to catch the eye. What he fails to do is catch the brain. At least, not in the right way. Perhaps too many ideas force questions too large for this multiplex sized entertainment. Certainly there’s a looseness that forces Hoffman to explain what the film hasn’t: “Nobody is innocent in this Ferris,” he says. That sort of thing.

Coupled with the realisation that near-pornographic terrorism has become Hollywood fodder, gnawing disquiet unbuckles the filmmakers’ quite considerable efforts, leaving Body Of Lies stuck somewhere in the war zone.

- Colin Fraser