Movie Review: Body of Lies

As far as thrillers go, straight off the bat, this is a pretty classy one. I'm a big fan of these newer, political/war/secret service thrillers, so it really touches on my love of the genre, but despite excellent cast and direction, the story falls a little short when the movie should reach its boiling point.

Body of Lies is a political-espionage thriller, which means you're going to see a lot of the swooping in-and-out satellite camera footage that studios love so much these days. Its a great effect, and fortunately with the spacing between every swoop is just enough so that it doesn't get tired.

As for the cast, Leonardo DiCaprio gives another one of his better performances. Since he decided to make better movies than Titanic, I seem to have seen him in a new light. Gone is the sad-sack of his younger days, parading round steamboats and fairly wild interpretations of Shakespeare plays, in are the deep mercenary types, and the undercover cops with Bostonian accents. Its a real transformation. In Body of Lies he portrays a young, but experienced government agent, but unlike most movies, his character makes mistakes, he gets hurt, and he gets emotional. Hes not perfect, and that's what makes the character great. The second blockbuster performance is by the the irascible Russel Crowe, playing the aged, homebound CIA type. The juxtaposition between him talking international security and taking his kids home from school serves to give his character a very powerful feel.

The film progresses in leaps and bounds, which is good, considering the 2 hour 40 mins run time, but youll find there is an occasional full stop where there will be neither action nor excitement, not compelling dialogue. Many times during the movie I switched off, deciding that fiddling with my shirt was more productive. If youre an easily bored person, you might want to stay away from this movie.

All in all, a polished movie, but it needs a few more goings over with the buffer.

Cinema means Cinebucks

I finally just finished watching a movie that I have been wanting to watch for a year now, and I shall explain to you why this transgression is so severe. My hometown, Yeovil (also known as Yeo-Vale, Yobville, Chav capital of the South-West, and briefly, YhauVaille) has a large cinema, something called a Cine-world, which I am led to believe is a term that describes its vast, worldly opportunities that are within, provided you are seeking opportunities of a "Cinefilm" nature.

Despite this glorious title, they have the tendency to cater to an audience that seems to appreciate...hm, the less intelligent things in life. That is to say that the Movie Movie franchise (those godawful parodies), and the regular bouts of gornography, are shown for months, due to the fact that the audience laps all of them up with eager tongues. That sounds a little weird. Anyway, all of the great films that are not at all intellectual, god forbid, but have a certain something that makes them better than the dirge that is churned out every month, and yet they do not remain on the screens for a very long time.

For example, the film 3:10 to Yuma, an overall great movie, with great writing, and engrossing actors, was in the cinema for a total of three fucking days. Now I'm not usually that surprised by mass stupidity, but that is goddamn ridiculous. The same thing happened a period of time later, with The Mist, a movie that was frankly brilliant, albeit slightly demeaning for all of those religious fanatics out there, was never out, despite the fact that they would have got phat moneys! It's this sort of ridiculousness that made me want to move away, so move away I did, to the undoubtedly greener pastures of Winchester, and in all its finery, but what do I find there, but the fact that they're still showing Mama Mia without Mama Mercy, in order to make Mama Money from all the Mama...students.

All this shows is that everyone in the cinema running business is officially batshit loco and that I am the only sane person in the whole city. Although this might be exaggerating things a bit.