Body of Lies [Blu-Ray]

Ridley Scott, though one of the most revered directors working today, seems to have made more mediocre movies than good ones. His latest, featuring the high profile star casting of Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in a post-9/11 era spy thriller, falls into that category. Body of Lies is so safe, conventional and un-dramatic that it's more annoying to know it was directed by the man who gave us Blade Runner and Alien. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, an on-the-ground C.I.A. operative working in Jordan to find the source of a rash of recent terrorist bombings in Europe. While he does the hand-to-hand dirty work, he's forced to trust his superior, the ego-tripping, portly Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), who commands the action from the safety of his comfy couch back home. The deeper Ferris gets into the politics the more he's forced to navigate the lies and individuals interests of his colleagues. Rudimentary cat-and-mouse movements ensue, resulting in a tepid, overly familiar and stale entry in the spy genre. How can this happen? This is something Ridley Scott should knock out of the park. Looking into the special features of the Blu-Ray edition gives some clues as to why this and many of his recent films have fallen into this middle ground of mediocrity. The consistent theme running throughout the special features is an over-the-top aggrandizement of Ridley Scott, the director. The themes of the film seem a mere adjunct to the "master" director. Watch the featurette "Master of the Craft," which has the cast and producers going on about the technical acumen of the great director and his preparedness and control of the set. Curiously, Scott then negates the praise when he describes how he can walk onto a set with just ideas in his head and craft the scene on the day. And certainly his steadfast adherence to using multiple cameras (according to the featurette, an average of five or six cameras per shot) has resulted in an indistinct template-quality to the look and pace of his films. As a result, certainly on Body of Lies, we've lost Ridley Scott the auteur director.