“Body of Lies” is the latest espionage thriller about an American intelligence agent starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Mark Strong. Ridley Scott directs the adaptation of a best-selling novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a CIA operative working in Jordan searching for terrorists who have been bombing civilian targets. Ferris uncovers information on the Islamist mastermind Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul). He devises a plan to infiltrate Al-Saleem's terrorist network with the help of his boss back in Langley, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe). Ferris enlists the help of the Chief of Jordanian Intelligence, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) on this operation. But you never know who you can really trust, especially at war.

There’s the classical conflict between what one has to do and what one actually ought to. Director and producer Ridley Scott adds that Ferris's trust-based affiliation with Jordanian intelligence chief Hani stands in sharp contrast to the agent's relationship with his dogmatic, boss, Hoffman. But the thing is that no matter how experienced your boss is, it is impossible for him to know more about a situation than the one who is actually involved in it. Much of the film was shot in Morocco, where director Scott found locations to believably stand in for settings from Iraq to Jordan. So despite the not very complex ideas of the film, the locations are very exotic, thus credible.

Regarding DiCaprio’s performance we can feel that there isn’t much going on inside. Instead Scott tried to create the drama using intensity and ignoring what the actor has to give.