This latest offering from Ridley Scott is a complex and labyrinthine action drama soaked in the politics of the ongoing war on terror.
Watch film trailers now »On the surface it concerns the aggressive hunt for an al-Qaida leader. Beneath, it positively writhes with sub-plots that illustrate the machinations that buoy up such campaigns and the people who populate them.For Scott, it is another rich seam to mine, and he collects every shiny black nugget. For stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, it is an opportunity to breathe vivid life into a barely glimpsed netherworld we ordinary mortals can scarcely begin
to contemplate.
DiCaprio gets the lion's share of the movie as an undercover operative waging a secret war on jihadists. He's a warrior of the old school: blending in, fighting a daily war of attrition against an enemy that is forever shifting and always two steps ahead.
But Crowe! The Antipodean hunk of Gladiator has piled on the pounds to emerge as a corpulent supporting player as a US agent leading the fight from a desk, mobile phone or limousine.
This unlikely duo form a partnership that, in Scott's hands, reveals how internal squabbling may actually be handing the conflict to the terrorists on a plate.
The action quotient is ramped up but this is a clear-eyed view of what we already know all too well: that one side is played off against another and no one trusts anyone else. DiCaprio brings his customary frenetic approach to the character of Roger Ferris, a front line operative whose job it is to get in too deep. Crowe, however, is way too laidback to fully convince as the duplicitous strategist.
This is an intricate, intimate portrait of a dirty war.
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