Body of Lies Critic Reviews

As it is, the movie is a hodgepodge of borrowings and half-cooked ideas, flung together into a feverishly edited jet-setting exercise in purposeless intensity.Read the full review

With its urgent post-9/11 context and often brutal violence, it seems off-key to describe Body of Lies as a nifty political thriller, but that's what it is.Read the full review

A tautly paced, well-acted espionage thriller with the requisite explosions and action sequences. Still, it ends up leaving the viewer rather cold.Read the full review

DiCaprio and Crowe, two supposedly high-wattage movie stars, are remarkably dull to watch together--perhaps because so many of their scenes together take place over the phone.Read the full review

Body of Lies neither panders nor condescends. It involves current events and has a political viewpoint, but it overplays neither.Read the full review

For all of Ferris's desperate struggles, and for all the director's efforts to emulate the remarkable verisimilitude he achieved in "Black Hawk Down," his new film remains abstract and unaffecting. It's a study in semisimilitude, more Google-Earthly than grounded in feelings.Read the full review

It's not like the screens are so flooded with decent movies that we couldn't use another, particularly a timely, clear-eyed thriller about the Middle East and the role of the U.S. therein.Read the full review

Always crisp and watchable. But as the film's episodic story gradually reveals itself, it ends up too unconvincing and conventional to consistently hold our attention.Read the full review

It may not be as much fun as old spy movies starring Cary Grant or more recent entertainments such as "Spy Game," directed by Ridley's brother Tony, but it feels all too accurate.Read the full review