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d. Ridley Scott; pr. Donald DeLine, Ridley Scott; scr. William Monahan; novel. David Ignatius; ph. Alexander Witt, Mark Streitenfeld; ed. Pietro Scalia; cast. Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Vince Colosimo (128 mins)

The following review is an extract from the forthcoming book by McFarland Press, Terrorism in American Cinema

In Body of Lies, a CIA operative (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the Middle East is on the trail of a terrorist who may be operating out of Jordan. He is helped by the head of the Jordanian secret service (Mark Strong), but only to a point as the US home-based department head (Russell Crowe) is a ruthless man unconcerned by the cultural subtleties the US must face in the War on Terror and obsessing over his duty to fight it to the point where he can no longer separate national duty from his obligation as a father (thus, as he gives orders to DiCaprio in the Middle East via headset, he simultaneously attends to his children). DiCaprio soon gets involved in a romance with a doctor, but when she is placed under surveillance because of her involvement in dating a Westerner, he realizes the repercussions of his actions and must protect her in addition to finding the terrorist cell.

Russell Crowe’s determination to see the War on Terror fought no matter what the cost to foreign relations or cultural sensitivity makes him the embodiment of the Republican Terror Warrior – a man who is determined to use any means necessary to fight the terrorist threat in the Middle East –

employing highly-skilled Arabic-speaking ground agents to do so: intelligence on the scene is the only effective way, backed by state-of-the-art surveillance equipment (a situation director Ridley Scott essayed first in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 in the hit film Black Hawk Down). DiCaprio’s intelligence agent: as a field agent in the War on Terror is involved in the immediate risk of being in a foreign culture and in hostile territory and has a different perspective than those who wage war from a safe distance (from what Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters termed “the bravery of being out of range”). DiCaprio must therefore respond to the cultural sensitivities of co-operating with friendly Islamic regimes in the War on Terror, and indeed dating Islamic women, in ways that Crowe considers irrelevant.

The contrast in attitudes to cultural and political sensitivity in the War on Terror between Crowe (who embodies the American “arrogance” that the Middle East resents) and DiCaprio (who embodies the lone-hero efficiency that always gets the best results in American film) reflects a dialectic highlighted in the cinema of terrorism post 9-11. Since Vice-President Dick Cheney first announced that America would have to fight the War on Terror at a new “dark” level in order to deal with an enemy so dehumanized as to be “evil”, terrorist films post 9-11 have been consumed by an ethical dilemma: the imperative to find the dangerous terrorists vs. human rights ethics and Constitutional circumvention. Indeed, questioning of the ethical nature of the Republican-led War on Terror dominates the resurgence of the terrorist film and makes the genre considered off-limits in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 now the most dynamic, sophisticated and thrilling means of socio-political criticism in contemporary American cinema: ranging from the documentary on the ethics of torture in Taxi to the Dark Side to the dramatization of water-boarding techniques in Rendition through to what is emerging as a new set-piece in terrorist cinema – the US hostage being bound and videotaped by terrorists in preparation for a beheading / execution video to be broadcast over the internet – dramatized in 2007’s The Kingdom and here, for the second time in American film post 9-11, in 2008’s Body of Lies.

Trust is the key issue in Body of Lies. The War on Terror has made an imperative out of international co-operation with friendly regimes. In 2007’s The Kingdom it was co-operation with the Saudi Royal family over terrorism in Saudi Arabia and in 2008’s Body of Lies it is co-operation with Jordanian intelligence.

Indeed, the Jordanian intelligence chief played by British actor Mark strong emerges as the most intriguing character in the film: charming, eloquent and exquisitely tailored, he knows the need to fight against terrorists, employs stern means to do so (though justifying such within his Islamic law), insists on being told the truth by Americans and when inevitably lied to during a covert American plan to lure out the terrorists is quite capable of single-handedly withdrawing Jordanian co-operation. It is Strong who introduces the theme of trust and, importantly, refuses to obediently acquiesce to American demands – and for good reason: needing to work with the Americans, he demands to be treated as an equal, with due respect from the American intelligence community.

Crowe considers America’s needs above all else, however, and is thus quite happy to condescend, demand and mislead to secure foreign involvement in the War on Terror. DiCaprio initially wins over Strong with his cultural sensitivity and distance from the American Republican arrogance of Crowe though is ultimately answerable to Crowe and becomes involved in an intelligence-agency covert plot to lure out the terrorist behind Strong’s back. Naturally, Strong considers this a violation of the terms of international co-operation in the War on Terror and thereafter is reluctant to help the Americans as he cannot trust them. His position in Body of Lies is the central ideological tension in what is a fast-paced, relentlessly exciting terrorist thriller. The abuse of international trust by American authorities, which director Scott considers emblematic of the intelligence community in the current War on Terror, jeopardizes the success of the needed field-work rather than ideally complement it as it should. Lies have consequences.

Indeed, the clash between safe surveillance from a distance and fieldwork on the ground is in Body of Lies startlingly deployed for a dramatization of the strengths and weaknesses in America’s War on Terror.

Just how those strengths and weaknesses relate to Republican policy underlies the wave of terrorist films post 9-11 including, in addition to those already mentioned, Death of a President and Civic Duty. Body of Lies, and the recent films which it ideologically reflects, conclusively demonstrates American cinema’s willingness to finally examine the War on Terror after several years (2001 to 2006: and the release of United 93) in which the subject was taboo, much like the Vietnam War was not addressed directly in American film until long after the domestic US political upheavals and social unrest of the era had settled.

Immediately after 9-11, the Republican Bush government said that any consideration of American foreign policy as in any way related to 9-11 was unpatriotic. Though political dissent was exercised by Michael Moore as early as Fahrenheit 9-11, the recent wave of post 9-11 terrorist themes have begun to seriously address American foreign policy: although the terrorist films do so in a post 9-11 context, Charlie Wilson’s War looked back to American foreign policy in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion as unintentionally paving the way for the Taliban and the events of 9-11.

It is perhaps Body of Lies which encapsulates this ethical and aesthetic scrutiny of American action in the War on Terror with its opening quote by W.H. Auden: “those to whom evil is done do evil in return.”

Although 9-11 was an evil act against the USA, the USA’s reprisal as conducted by the Bush government – considered arguably indictable war criminals in Taxi to the Dark Side – seriously calls into question America’s conduct in the War on Terror. In Body of Lies though the context is not human rights violation in a War that sanctions torture but American political arrogance and intelligence community deception in dealing with international “friendlies” to root out the terrorist threat. However real, dangerous and exciting the terrorist threat may be in director’s Scott’s thrilling pace and layered narrative in Body of Lies, it is the ideological scrutiny through which the War on Terror is framed in the post 9-11 terrorist films that makes them vibrant works of socio-political criticism, especially in the lead-up to the US Presidential election that would see the end of the Bush era.

The Village Voice dubbed the wave of post 9-11 terrorist movies “terror porn”: the term is perhaps appropriate – the films all use the unique post 9-11 political context to contemporize tales of thrilling espionage in the War on Terror with a violent immediacy that is truly exciting and undeniably contemporary, are obsessed by both the threat of terrorism and its thrill as forbidden spectacle, foreign policy ramifications and responsibilities and 1) the dramatization of America’s intelligence-gathering capabilities in tandem with 2) the invigorating thrill of actual on-ground espionage field-work in foreign countries.