Land of Whimsy

Movies watched in February 2009

Land of Whimsy / Movies / Movies watched in February 2009

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Body of Lies (6/10)

USA: Ridley Scott, 2008

I tend to find Ridley Scott rather frustrating as a filmmaker. On the one hand, he has one of the best visual eyes of any Hollywood director, and when he's on the ball and has a decent script to work with, can turn out some truly terrific material. On the other hand, of late he has demonstrated a rather unfortunate habit of picking scripts that just aren't all that involving. To this day I haven't managed to make it through American Gangster, and I found Body of Lies to be similarly heavy-going. In spite of the topical material (or, actually, possibly because of it), I just didn't find myself connecting with any of the characters. Leonardo Di Caprio and Russell Crowe are both fine actors, but their characters never really came to life for me, and more often than not I felt as if I was just watching them wandering from one plot point to another, with nothing to involve me along the way. Frankly, the film just sort of "is", and while it's technically extremely well-made, and well-acted across the board, I just wish I had more of a reason to care about what was going on.

IMDB reference