Just because I watch movies for a living doesn’t mean I always understand them, and I was so mystified by the first hour of this 21st-century spy movie that I almost walked out in exasperation.

I understood that Leonardo DiCaprio was playing a CIA agent working in the Middle East, and that Russell Crowe, as the agency’s Near East chief, was monitoring and directing him from suburban Virginia. The two are clearly contrasted: DiCaprio is always in motion and looks lean and angry, while Crowe, who put on 50 pounds for the role and speaks with a drawl somewhere between Tommy Lee Jones and Andy of Mayberry, holds up his end while sitting in his living room or watching his kid’s baseball practice. Crowe’s character may be more morally compromised, as he gamely notes a dozen or so times, but DiCaprio isn’t much better. Really, the only difference is that the latter seems to feel guilty about his actions. But the plot jumps around so much to do apparent end that I was just about to vacate the premises when it finally settled into a fairly linear storyline, in which the two try to flush out a top terrorist by setting up a phony rival. This involves selecting a pawn, an innocent citizen, and making him appear to be the leader of an imaginary new terrorist group.

From there on Body of Lies is interesting enough that I don’t understand why director Ridley Scott and his editor didn’t simply hack off most of the preceding hour. Of course, that would mean losing most of Crowe’s performance, but that would be no great loss: He seems to be enjoying himself overacting, but it never really adds much to the movie. By far the film’s best performance comes from Mark Strong as the head of Jordanian intelligence, an outwardly suave fellow who is more than a little exasperated at being openly used by the Americans. Body of Lies was based on a novel by David Ignatius, a journalist who covered the CIA and Middle East affairs for 10 years for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Giving his resume, I would assume that the novel is better developed than this fast-moving but weirdly listless thriller.

—m. faust