Trailer Blogger

Click to watch the Body of Lies trailer at Zuguide.com

Even though they’re both working for the CIA, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe find themselves at odds in their upcoming film Body of Lies. While DiCaprio is out risking his neck trying to infiltrate a major terrorist network in Jordan, Crowe, his superior, is safely out of harm’s way, taking credit for all the hard work. And, to make matters worse, besides being a manipulative, power-hungry bastard, Crowe is a fat tub (he reportedly gained 63 pounds for the role). I imagine that going into Body of Lies, Crowe lobbied pretty hard to convince director Ridley Scott, whom he’s working with for the fourth time (Gladiator, A Good Year, American Gangster), that his character needed to be on the large side to be a convincing jerk. Even though I don’t see this as a Raging Bull type situation and believe Crowe mostly wanted to stuff his face for six months, I have to admit that Crowe’s distended belly and bad wig make the idea of an even confrontation with DiCaprio a little more believable — because, even with his fancy handgun, there’s no way Romeo could take out Maximus in his prime.

The Body of Lies trailer begins with Crowe talking about the realities of a global war, while satellite images and wide-angle shots of an unnamed Middle Eastern city are shown. We then see a special forces unit moving into position just before a man sets of a bomb with a cell phone in a busy shopping area. Shifting to Washington, D.C., Crowe offers a bleak warning about the end our way of life, while, elsewhere, DiCaprio calls out Crowe for being worthless without the work he does on the ground. After a quick shot of a car bomb exploding, the trailer transitions to DiCaprio preparing for a mission and then engaging in a gun battle while hanging from the side of an SUV. In the next scene, we see the CIA tracking DiCaprio with a satellite, as Crowe sits on a sailboat docked next to his house and shovels cereal into his mouth.  In the remainder of the trailer, we’re introduced to Mark Strong, the shady head of Jordan’s covert operations, and watch as DiCaprio’s cover is blown and Crowe does nothing to help him, setting up a final confrontation. My favorite part of the trailer comes when Crowe’s wife finds him talking on the phone outside his home at 6am and Crowe, who’s wearing a bathrobe, explains that he’s “saving civilization.” Body of Lies opens October 10, 2008. Check out the Body of Lies trailer at Zuguide.com.