Same plot, different war

 ‘Body of Lies’
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio,
Russell Crowe, Mark Strong
Rating: R
Grade: 3 Globes

REVIEW. After the Cold War, espionage movies pinning the Soviet Union as the coldblooded bad guys who chugged vodka, wore funny hats, had thick accents and wanted to nuke us good ol’ Americans right out of the Baltic Sea flooded the box office. Now Hollywood has a new villain, no matter how many stereotypes it reinforces: Islamic terrorists.

The latest in a string of post-9/11 themed thrillers, “Body of Lies” follows CIA operative Roger Ferris, (Leonardo DiCaprio, whose unkempt squiggly facial hair is as distracting as a huge fly perched in the middle of the screen) as he does the nitty gritty groundwork of tracking down a notorious terrorist leader — a bin Laden–like, video mailing Al-Saleem. His every action is controlled by CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (an overweight Russell Crowe, who gained 50 pounds for the role), who watches Ferris via cameras and high-tech tracking devises set up in cell phones and honed-in by choppers. As Hoffman drives his SUV around his generic American suburb, munches on cereal and cheering on his kid’s soccer games, he phones in cold-hearted orders overseas, leading into one of the cooler aspect of the movie: The script occasionally plays devil’s advocate to our current situation, showing the evils of both sides of the war.