Body of Lies

Luigi 2022-01-25 08:07:17

From the plot point of view, this film is just as most people guessed, unable to get rid of the influence of "Post 9.11 malaise syndrome". Movies suffering from this disease all want to use anti-terrorism themes to pinpoint the current maladies, in an attempt to reflect the aspirations of the "people"; but the market is not controlled by the "people" like a ghost, and those who are often spitting and fluttering when chatting. The topics and opinions that are usually on Lao Mei’s mouth cannot win the hearts of the same audience on the screen.

Whether Lao Mei is really a poor worm with a strong mouth and a fragile heart is impossible to verify, and it is not within the scope of this article. What went beyond my personal surprise was the director who had always assured me, but this time I didn't find a fresh perspective. Although the entry point for directly describing the CIA's frontline agents is quite different from the recent "Traitor" which focused on the undercover agent's career, in the final analysis, it is nothing more than the counter-terrorism agent. Moreover, as senior movie fans can foresee, these works will try their best to display the life of the agents as "nothing big and small", so that they are detailed to a numbing degree.

Take Roger Ferris, the protagonist of the film, as an example. The film not only carefully depicts every detail of his anti-terrorist operations, but also delves into the private life of the comrade very "thinkingly", to be precise, a romantic relationship. For the purpose of attracting young female audiences full of pink fantasy, I understand the setting of this kind of bloody plot. But I couldn't help feeling sad for classmate Scott. Because in my mind, he has never been profligate, and the plot elements are always handled cleanly and appropriately, without a trace of excess. I personally think that these romantic plots in this film are somewhat excessive.

To judge whether the plot branch of the film is necessary, firstly, whether it can promote the development of the main plot, and secondly whether it can enrich the character image, the emotional drama in "The Body of Lies" has no effect in these two aspects. Although the director deliberately arranged the protagonist's romantic objects in the latter third to become a factor in promoting the development of the plot, it is not very convincing. In fact, the whole point that the protagonist suddenly looks like a romantic one can't justify it. Not to mention how inconsistent this is with the protagonist's image established at the beginning of the movie. From the perspective of the professional training of special agents, the practice of "random mercy" is seriously inadequate. If the protagonist is such a person, then he can't be promoted to the position in the film at all; if he is so unprofessional, he can't live until the day when he has a romantic encounter. In fact, the patchwork romance can also bring out a series of flaws in the plot of the film. For example, as the protagonist of a high-ranking agent, his residence is completely without precautionary facilities, and his elderly people act in their true colors when they leave the residence, embassy, ​​intelligence bureau and other "deadly" departments. This does not clearly provide opportunities for terrorists. NS? If I were a terrorist, I wouldn’t let him go, I would send a telegram to the boss, “I’m stupid, dead, and come quickly.”

If the exploration of flaws seems a bit critical, from the point of view of the coherence of the characters, the plot setting of the film is also a little thoughtless. When the protagonist played by Leonardo DiCarprio first came out, he gave the impression of being calm and courageous, even a bit cold-blooded-this can be seen from his use of "informants". Obviously, the choreographer is trying his best to portray the image of the comrade as a five-good agent who does nothing but leaves no trace. Four words can be described: professional and low-key. The most important thing is that the choreographer makes people think that the comrade is not the kind of impulsive hairy boy at all; in this way, he is actually completely "on impulsive" romantic behavior, which seems groundless. Even if there are successful classics of "a calm man suddenly falling in love", it can even be said that such a comparison will make the character image more plump, but all of this is based on the premise of complete explanation. In fact, the romantic plot in the film is not only abrupt, but also abrupt, which seems a bit inexplicable.

Of course, the romance is only a small part of the story in "Body of Lies", and it is indeed a bit biased to deny the whole film. If you only look at the interactive relationship between the two main protagonists of the film, you can’t help but think carefully: the film did not arrange for them to be born and die together like a traditional partner, nor did it pretend to be mysterious to Russell Crowe (Russell Crowe). The character becomes only the cold voice behind the phone, but allows them to gossip about their secret agent tasks like long-tongue women through international long distances. At the same time, the director also arranges for Crowe on the call to do things like taking care of the children with the agents. The activities that I don't want to do at all make the tension and excitement on the front line form a rather interesting contrast with the trivial mediocrity of the "big rear". However, no matter how interesting things are, I can't help repeating them again and again. In the performance of the interaction between the two protagonists, Scott seemed a bit too monotonous. The plot of the long "talking on the phone" eventually consumed the audience's curiosity. The dissipation of this chemical effect is like a conversation between lovers living in two places: after a certain period of time, after all the sweet words that should be said are finished, even if the sweet words can be said, they will all become dry. Baba's words were insincere. In fact, the relationship between the characters of DiCaprio and Crow in this film has the same potential as the relationship between the characters of Alec Baldwin and Mark Walberg in "Infernal Affairs." These due sparks have been consumed by the "lack of effective opponents". At the same time, for Krau's character, those trivial details of life did not add a three-dimensional sense to the character. Generally speaking, the role of details is mainly to add interest to the plot or the character, but the character of Crow seems rather one-sided and monotonous from beginning to end.

[Benchmark action]
As the saying goes, you can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry. When a group of directors who "have the whole world" flocked to the big film "Post 9.11 theme", their mentality is actually out of balance, and they tend to pay too much attention to conveying their own political information and ignore the perfection of the elements of the film itself. This makes almost all such movies appear to be more appropriate and lack meaningful.

Fortunately, Scott is not only a thoughtful director, he is also a visual master, as far as the genre of the film is concerned, he is a master of action scene scheduling. In fact, from the lofty status of "Black Hawk Down" among male fans, Scott's ability to handle action scenes has long been beyond doubt.

"Body of Lies" is an action thriller, not a war action film like "Black Hawk Down". Therefore, the action scenes in this film are inferior to "Black" in terms of scale and intensity, nor can they compare to it. DiCaprio's last action film, Blood Diamond. However, Scott still relied on his keen eyesight and superb grasping ability to bring a few short but incisive action scenes to the fans.

First of all, I have to say that Scott's exquisite performance of aerial reconnaissance video is very exciting, and may even be performed to the point of extraordinary. These shots give people a very "high-tech" feeling. Although the picture itself is not designed to express the details of the action, it undoubtedly renders a few exciting atmospheres worth looking forward to for the ensuing action scenes.

Secondly, in dealing with the rhythm of the action scenes, Scott was truly vigorous and without a cumbersome shot. The shootout and chase scenes in "Body of Lies" are not the kind of deliberately messy and fast montage cutting (like the recently released "007 Love in Love"), but more long shots are used, but because Using the method of hand-held follow-up shooting, the constant shaking of the screen may make the general audience mistakenly think that the camera is constantly switching. In short, Scott's treatment has a more real sense of presence. The audience is like a war reporter, and the protagonist has to experience the baptism of gunpowder and bombing together with the protagonist.

In addition, the body movements of the characters in the action scenes in the film are also based on efficiency. Without Wu Yusen's blindly romanticized "hero pose", many of the protagonist's escape actions are even very embarrassing. However, the actions in the film are therefore more realistic. When dealing with the protagonist's action scenes, Scott mainly emphasized the agility of reaction. For front-line agents, the swift and correct reaction may be more professional than acting as a hero. Because of this, although none of the actions in the film seem to be cool, the overall feeling is in place, which is a kind of excitement that cannot be achieved by stylized filming.

Of course, it is obviously impossible to say how innovative the action scenes of this film are, or that the overall look and feel surpasses "Black Hawk Down". This just means that, relative to the storyline of the film, the action scenes have maintained Scott's consistently high standard.

[Unrelated performance] The

same high level as the action scenes, there are performances. Although Crow’s character has few chances to shine due to the setting of the script, he still grasped the few opportunities to play against other characters, and showed that in those scenes, Zhizhu is always in control or even The demeanor of a senior CIA director who seems a bit cunning. Only in those scenes, the casual and homely atmosphere of this character will contrast sharply and interestingly with his superb agent awareness and skills, and at the same time with the sharp-edged enthusiasm of first-line agents. Unfortunately, there are not many opportunities for Crow to be generous. If the director arranges his role to talk on the phone with DiCaprio's role, there will be more dialogues that show personality that the audience is interested in, not just the boring "on the matter". Special agent task guidance, Crowe's performance will appear more textured and overall.

For DiCaprio, perhaps the path to becoming an acting school is the "sloppy" path, because in the past few years he has almost become more and more "ugly" in the role he has chosen, so he is almost playing a mentally handicapped person with a distorted face. NS. In this film, not only does he always retain a large beard that is not in harmony with the delicate face, but in most of the scenes he is the nine-bag elder who looks like a gang of beggars, even if he is in those action scenes. Zhong often ends with a blood-stained image; even in those romantic scenes that seem to be "a man who should please himself", the little handsome guy is not much better in dressing up. Although I personally feel that these painstaking efforts in the image design did not add more points to the acting performance, but certainly did not reduce the points. In fact, DiCaprio did not need to work so hard from the appearance. .

However, even if Xiao Di worked so hard, it was a bit "aesthetic fatigue" for me; this feeling is like many girls are beautiful in every way, but they can't be really liked; to put it bluntly, it just lacks "awesomeness" point". In "Body of Lies", this "stunning point" was taken away by Hani, the head of the Jordanian intelligence service. The role played by "Mark Strong" (Mark Strong) is actually very common, whether it is styling design or deduction of routines. However, the "strong brother" on the screen makes every move, frowning and eyeing, that is, there is an extraordinary smell there, which makes it difficult for people to be enthusiastic. In short, "Brother Strong" is like the big brothers of the "Godfather" era in the film, with a group of leaders and courageous courage. If I want to shoot the fourth episode of "The Godfather" now, I will support him as the boss with both hands and feet. From the perspective of "acting introverted and natural", the above evaluation seems unfair to Xiao Di, but there is no way. The look and feel of the movie is complicated and subtle, just like the charm of women: many women have good faces and bodies, but they are It's not attractive; and some women don't look at most of the conditions, but there are one or two things that are unforgettable and unforgettable.

[The so-called meaning]

If it weren't for the gimmick of Scott and the two superstar actors, I might not have paid attention to this film; although I would miss the opportunity to be idiots with "Brother Strong", there is nothing in terms of film experience. loss. For subjects like "Body of Lies", no matter how the directors disguise, their true or false "criticism" side will be difficult to conceal.

The most fundamental thing is that the current film creation in this area has criticized the U.S. government’s anti-terrorism policy in recent years for quick success, short-sightedness and stupidity. At the same time, it has also committed the same impetuous problem, so that the function of "passing opinions" has overwhelmed " The function of artistic expression. Film is always an art of performance. No matter how good the idea is, the goal is humanity, and the performance is average or failing, not only can it not move people, but it will make people feel empty and passionate and appear immature.


Originally published in "Watching Movies"

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Extended Reading
  • Trudie 2022-04-24 07:01:04

    BD 720P revisited. 11/09/17 16/12/20 20/11/19

  • Branson 2022-03-23 09:01:33

    For a big director, it is an ordinary film, and the two male protagonists are just normal, the battle of lies between terrorists and American intelligence officers.

Body of Lies quotes

  • [first lines]

    Title Card: I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn, those to whom evil is done, do evil in return. - W.H. Auden

  • [first lines]

    Al-Saleem: Ali.

    Ali: Yeah.

    Al-Saleem: As we destroyed the bus in Sheffield last week, we will be ready and prepared for the operation in Britain. We avenge the American wars on the Muslim world.