Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio’s CIA Thriller Officially Hits Apple TV

Rohan Naahar is a News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.
He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.
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During the peak of Homeland's popularity, amid a period of tremendous paranoia among the American public, Ridley Scott directed a movie that now seems like the perfect time capsule. He recruited two A-listers to headline the espionage thriller set against the backdrop of Middle East politics, which predates similar films such as Green Zone, The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty. The movie in question remains a minor entry in Scott's formidable filmography, but it occasionally pops up on the streaming charts.
The film was released in 2008, the same year as another tentpole about America having turned into a surveillance state: The Dark Knight. It follows a CIA operative on the hunt for a terrorist while embedded in Jordan, and his handler back home in Virginia. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the field operative, while regular Scott collaborator Russell Crowe plays the handler. Mark Strong appears in a supporting role as the head of the Jordanian intelligence agency, while Golshifteh Farahani appears as the love interest of DiCaprio's character.
The movie also marks an early major role for Oscar Isaac, who would go on to work with Scott again on Robin Hood — the period action movie ended the filmmaker's decade-long creative collaboration with Crowe. Unlike Scott and Crowe's Oscar-winning blockbuster Gladiator, or even their acclaimed crime epic American Gangster, the political thriller underperformed at the box office.
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Film/Quizzes/Which Bond
Name
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Comparative AssessmentEyes Only
Collider QuizWhich James Bond
Are You?8 Questions · 6 ActorsSix actors. Six completely different visions of the same man: dangerous, charming, complicated, and almost certainly wearing a very good suit. Only one of them shares your particular way of moving through the world. Eight questions will figure out which Bond you really are.The Six
Connery
Moore
Dalton
Brosnan
Lazenby
Craig
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Question 01PRESENCE
01How do you carry yourself when you walk into a room?Bond is always the most interesting person in the room. The question is how he makes you feel it.
Pick one, then Next
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Question 02DANGER
02How do you handle a dangerous situation?Every Bond faces it differently. What does your version look like?
Pick one, then Next
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Question 03CHARM
03How do you charm someone you need on your side?Bond always gets what he needs. The method varies considerably.
Pick one, then Next
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Question 04EMOTION
04How do you handle your emotions on the job?Every Bond deals with this differently. Most of them not particularly well.
Pick one, then Next
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Question 05STYLE
05How would your colleagues describe your working style?MI6 has opinions about all of its 00s. What are theirs about you?
Pick one, then Next
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Question 06RULES
06How do you feel about operating within the rules?The 00 designation comes with terms and conditions. Not everyone reads them.
Pick one, then Next
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Question 07LOVE
07What is your relationship with love?Every Bond has a different answer. None of them have found it easy.
Pick one, then Next
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Question 08LEGACY
08When the mission is over, how do you want to be remembered?The name is Bond. The rest is entirely up to the man behind it.
Pick one, then Next
The Name Has Been DeterminedYour Bond Is
Six actors. One role. Your answers point to the Bond who shares your presence, your method, and your particular way of carrying the weight of being the most dangerous person in the room.
1962-1971Sean ConneryDr. No to Diamonds Are ForeverYou were always going to end up here.
You are the original, and you carry that fact without needing to announce it. There is an authority in the way you occupy a room that others spend careers trying to replicate.Why This Is You
- You don't explain yourself, justify yourself, or soften yourself for anyone's comfort. The confidence is structural, not performed.
- Connery's Bond established everything, the tone, the danger, the cool, because Connery himself had the innate presence to make something that had never existed feel inevitable.
- You share that quality: the sense that you were always going to end up exactly here, doing exactly this.
- The name is Bond. In your case, it always was.
The OriginalStructural CoolAuthority
1973-1985Roger MooreLive and Let Die to A View to a KillThe lightness is the technique.
You understand something that more serious people miss: that wit is its own form of intelligence, and that making people laugh is not a retreat from danger but a way of mastering it.Why This Is You
- Moore's Bond is underrated precisely because the effortlessness looks easy, and effortlessness is the hardest thing to manufacture.
- You have the same quality: a lightness that disarms people before they realize how sharp you really are.
- The raised eyebrow, the perfectly timed quip, the refusal to be rattled. These are not affectations. They are a philosophy about how to move through a world that would like to take itself too seriously.
- You have never let it.
The QuipUnrattledEffortless
1987-1989Timothy DaltonThe Living Daylights, Licence to KillYou took it seriously when nobody asked you to.
You took the role seriously when everyone wanted you to coast, and that refusal to take the easy version of anything is the most defining thing about you.Why This Is You
- Dalton's Bond has genuine moral weight: he feels the cost of what he does, he has lines he won't cross, and he is not interested in the version of himself that pretends otherwise.
- You share that intensity. You push harder than the situation technically requires, because you have a standard and you hold yourself to it.
- He was ahead of his time, the Bond the franchise wasn't quite ready for yet, arriving exactly when he was meant to.
- You know what that feels like.
Moral WeightNo CoastingAhead Of It
1995-2002Pierce BrosnanGoldenEye to Die Another DaySome people simply fit their moment.
You are the complete package, and you know it, which is part of what makes you so effective and occasionally so infuriating to the people around you.Why This Is You
- Brosnan arrived at the role looking exactly like Bond was supposed to look, and he delivered on that expectation with a professionalism that made it seem effortless.
- You have the same quality: a smooth competence, a charm that operates like a precision instrument, and the ability to make even difficult things look like they weren't.
- His four films revived the franchise after a six-year gap and made Bond a blockbuster property again. There is a reason for that.
- The reason is that some people simply fit their moment perfectly. You are one of those people.
The PackagePrecision CharmRevival
1969George LazenbyOn Her Majesty's Secret ServiceHistory tends to catch up with people like you.
You stepped into something enormous with less preparation than anyone around you thought was sufficient, and you delivered something genuine anyway, which is the more impressive achievement.Why This Is You
- Lazenby's single outing is, by many measures, one of the finest Bond films ever made, and he is not a small part of why.
- You share his quality of raw authenticity: less polished than the alternatives, more honest for it, capable of something real that technique alone can't produce.
- He was underestimated, and then he wasn't, and then history caught up with him.
- You are the kind of person history catches up with. Give it time.
One Film OnlyRawUnderrated
2006-2021Daniel CraigCasino Royale to No Time to DieUnderestimated, then undeniable.
You stripped everything back and found what was underneath, and what was underneath was harder, more honest, and more human than anyone expected.Why This Is You
- Craig's Bond is the franchise's most psychologically complete: a man doing a punishing job, carrying its costs imperfectly, capable of love and loss in ways that can't be dismissed.
- You share that depth. You don't hide behind the role or the charm or the suit. You let the work show what it really costs.
- He was controversial from the moment he was announced and definitive by the time he was finished. The skeptics became the believers.
- That arc, of being underestimated and then undeniable, is one you know intimately.
Stripped BackHuman CostDefinitive
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Here's the Political Thriller Starring Two A-Listers
We're talking, of course, about Body of Lies. The movie grossed around $120 million worldwide against a reported budget of $70 million — while three A-listers would certainly not have come cheap, the film was also shot in numerous international locations. The mixed reviews certainly didn't help. The film now holds a 54% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, "Body of Lies relies on the performances of Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio to elevate it beyond the conventional espionage thriller."
According to FlixPatrol, Body of Lies witnessed a viewership spike recently. It's currently among the most popular movies on the domestic Apple TV chart, which happens to be topped by another two-hander featuring Crowe: The Nice Guys. Incidentally, Crowe's latest release, the critically acclaimed Western drama The Weight, is yet another two-hander. DiCaprio, on the other hand, was last seen in One Battle After Another, and is about to begin working on Michael Mann's long-awaited Heat 2. You can watch Body of Lies at home, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
- October 10, 2008
- Runtime
- 128 minutes
- Director
- Ridley Scott
- Writers
- William Monahan, David Ignatius
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