Russell Crowe & Ridley Scott's $118M Spy Thriller Flop Gets Praised For Some Counterterrorism Details From Expert (Aside From 1 Inaccuracy)

Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe first collaborated on the historical action film Gladiator, and their teaming proved fruitful indeed, as the movie went on to gross $465 million worldwide while winning five Oscars, including Best Picture, and Best Actor for Crowe. This despite the film’s many inaccuracies, which have been documented incessantly over the years.

Gladiator got the Crowe-Scott team off on a good foot, but the partnership wouldn’t continue until 2006’s A Good Year, a left-hand-turn into romantic-comedy that proved a flop, grossing just $42 million. Scott and Crowe returned from that disappointment with 2007’s American Gangster, co-starring Denzel Washington as real-life crime figure Frank Lucas. Praised by critics (as reflected in its 81% fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating), the film marked a box office rebound for the Crowe/Scott team, grossing $269 million – even though, again, the film had many inaccuracies, as confirmed by the real Lucas.

Crowe And Scott’s Body Of Lies Gets High Marks For Accuracy, Outside Of One Big Stretch

Leonardo DiCaprio Co-Starred In The 2008 Movie

Body of Lies was a box-office flop for Crowe and Scott, grossing just $118 million, but the movie still gets a good grade for realism from a counter-terrorism expert. The spy thriller stars Crowe as a CIA chief, the superior officer to Leonardo DiCaprio’s field agent, who collaborates with Jordanian intelligence to track down a notorious Al-Quaeda terrorist.

Charges of inaccuracy leveled against Gladiator and American Gangster likely mean little to Scott, who almost always prioritizes dramatic effect over “realism.”

A former CIA agent himself, John Kiriakou broke down Body of Lies for Insider, and found much to praise in the film’s depiction of on-the-ground intelligence work (beginning at 17:33 of the clip): First off, Kiriakou gave the film kudos for depicting intelligence cooperation in a realistic light:

So this was entirely true to life. Intelligence liaison cooperation happens every day in every capital in every country around the world. It benefits everybody to have a liaison relationship, even with a country that you might be enemies with. Leonardo DiCaprio went to the Jordanian intelligence service and said we need a source inside Al-Qaeda, gave his Jordanian counterpart the file. Counterterrorism is an easy one right? Just about everybody's going to cooperate on counterterrorism.

The expert then broke down a scene where an Arabic Al-Qaeda member is recruited to be a spy, explaining why the sequence nails it in terms of realism:

A white guy with blonde hair and blue eyes is not going to infiltrate Al-Qaeda, but that guy will. And then another myth that comes out of Hollywood is that the CIA is able to directly infiltrate foreign terrorist groups. That's just simply not true. Half of the people at the CIA who speak Arabic have blonde hair and blue eyes, are African-American, speak Arabic with an American accent. You're not going to infiltrate a terrorist group that way. What you have to do is to recruit access agents who can do it on your behalf.

Body of Lies does contain one glaringly ridiculous scene, according to Kiriakou. The expert says the movie goes too far when DiCaprio stages a bold false flag operation against an American installation:

Can you imagine writing a cable to headquarters and saying, “I have an idea for an operation: let's blow up the American embassy?” You can implement a false flag operation. A false flag operation is when you do something and either blame it on someone else or allow someone else to take credit. But no, not not like we saw in the clip.

Kirkiakou gives Body of Lies a high grade, even though he finds part of its storyline totally unbelievable:

The account of the relationship is so good. I'd give it an eight. The only reason I wouldn't give it a nine or ten is because the bombing of this American facility is just so nuts.

Our Take On Body Of Lies' High Accuracy Score (And That One Caveat)

The Movie Should Have Sacrificed Some Realism For More Drama

Charges of inaccuracy leveled against Gladiator and American Gangster likely mean little to Scott, who almost always prioritizes dramatic effect over “realism.” Body of Lies indeed is more faithful to reality than those films, at least according to one expert, but this may not have worked in the movie's favor. Gladiator and American Gangster may be less spot-on in terms of realistic detail, but they’re also much more effective as movies.

Body of Lies was written by William Monohan, based on the book by David Ignatius

The one glaringly preposterous storyline pointed out in Kiriakou’s breakdown – the false flag bombing of an American facility – is actually one of the movie’s more dramatic moments. Perhaps Body of Lies should have gone less for accuracy, and more for punchy drama. A high accuracy score from an expert is a fine compliment to get, but the only number that matters is the box-office gross, and that’s where Body of Lies falls short.

Source: Insider