The plot begins with a video tape of an Osama bin Laden-like figure, the leader of an al-Qaida splinter faction, solemnly issuing orders to carry out a relentless jihad across Europe and America to bleed the infidels dry. The plot then speeds up after the recording to depict suicide bombers attacking Manchester, England, and later a marketplace in the Netherlands. We first meet the main protagonist in Iraq: Roger Ferris, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, a CIA asset. During the movie, Ferris is vainly trying to track down the mysterious leader revealed on the video tape at the beginning. He just cannot seem to get any closer to the leader, as his CIA handler, Edward Hoffman, played by Russell Crowe, is continually running a narrow-minded conflicting operation at the same time. With the operations in Iraq exhausted, the setting moves to Jordan.

In Jordan, Ferris has a manpower shortage, and as a result must form a partnership with Hani Salaam, chief of the Jordanian Intelligence Service, in order to track down the terrorist leader. However, the partnership comes with strings attached: Ferris must never lie to Salaam; but the venture is doomed to fail. Hoffman continually leaves Ferris in the dark about his single-minded counter-operations, which forces Ferris to break the one stipulation of his partnership with Salaam. Then, after Salaam discovers Ferris’s lie, Ferris and the CIA are left with no inside help in the Middle East. Nonetheless, the terrorist leader is still at large and the CIA has only one last option available to try to detain the leader. However, the operation is extremely risky and could easily get Ferris captured.

This plot was both exciting and full of suspense, though the movie did seem to drag on as the body count continued to stack up. Despite this, Body of Lies met all of my expectations for a modern spy movie and was an awesome action-thriller. I would sum up Body of Lies in two words: brutally awesome. The gore moves from Ferris waking up in a hospital bed as a doctor delicately picks another man’s bone fragments out of his skin to knifing a terrorist in a Jordanian back alley as guard dogs circle viciously, biting at ankles—no scene is devoid of its own unique brand of brutality.

However, as a general note, this film was rated R for a reason—not for sex, but for its gruesome violence. During the course of the movie, there are three torture scenes; one so graphic that the viewer squirms in his or her seat, the other two containing allusions to people getting their heads cut off via a homemade movie on the internet.

So, when you think of an action movie where more than ten people get killed in increasingly brutal ways and a thriller where twists and double blinds are the norm, Body of Lies is the perfect movie. However, as a date movie, this movie is a very poor choice, for the reasons listed above.