Leonardo DiCaprio, right, plays a CIA agent in Jordan who clashes with his ruthless boss, played by Russell Crowe, left, in Body of Lies.

Warner Bros. / Francois Duhamel

In the Middle East thriller Body of Lies, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a CIA spy who wants to come in from the cold, or in this case the broiling desert heat.

But the bungling of his boss thrusts him deeper into a terrorist plot that will not only put his own life in peril, but those he loves.

When you’re dealing with a body of lies, it’s not clear if you can trust even those closest to you. This gives the film its walking-on-eggshells quality. DiCaprio’s Roger Ferris, alone in exotic locales and with little support from his boss, must depend on his own wits to keep himself alive. Director Ridley Scott shines a spotlight on current events in Body of Lies, bringing them boldly to life.

Like DiCaprio’s young detective in The Departed, his Roger Ferris in Body of Lies shares the same kind of human emotions that make him accessible to audiences and yet may hold the key to his destruction. Roger has developed a conscience. He cares about his informants. He has gotten into their lives. Noble as this may sound, it may not be the wisest instincts for a spy to have.

Certainly his boss, Ed Hoffman (an excellent Russell Crowe with a slight Southern accent) back at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., has no conscience, at least when it comes to the spy business. Although there are many amusing scenes in which Ed multitasks, puttering about the house taking care of his children and family matters while at the same time barking orders to Roger half a world away, Ed doesn’t really have a feel for the cautious approach Roger feels he needs for the success of his operation. Ed doesn’t care about the livelihood of any of the contacts Roger has groomed and depends on.

Callously, Ed thinks of these faceless people as mere pawns in an elaborate chess game in which he controls the moves, but from a distance. At one point, he refuses to grant U.S. asylum to one of Roger’s informants, something Roger has promised the man. This distresses Roger nearly as much as the informant. Ed is all about results, no matter the cost, assuring Roger that the country is at war and needs to take any steps necessary to win. As Ed puts it, “I have no time for patience.”

It’s the give-and-take between Roger and Ed, an ocean and a continent apart, that fuels the plot.

Roger has painstakingly stitched together tiny connections in hopes of finally getting to his quarry — the head of a worldwide terrorist organization — waiting for just the right moment to spring. Ed wants action, now. He keeps an eye on Roger from above via a spy satellite that has been strategically placed over crucial points on the ground in the Middle East. Ed watches Roger’s movements and those of some of the terrorists on a giant screen at Langley, turning Roger’s operation into a television show. If Ed deems it necessary, like an angry Thor he can order a strike from above, sending missiles thundering down to wipe out a terrorist safe house, or a terrorist himself.

Occasionally the bellicose Ed flies into Jordan to get a close-up look at Roger’s operation, sticking his nose into things he doesn’t fully understand and, like the bull in the china shop, usually manages to turn a tense situation into a full-blown disaster. Ed is the consummate “ugly American,” a person with no sense of history or diplomacy. He blusters his way into the office of the head of Jordanian security, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), the one man in Jordan that Roger depends on for support and guidance. Hani, who is as cool as his meticulous wardrobe, is startled by the demands Ed makes while trying to pull rank, loudly pointing out that he is a representative of the United States government, which funds Hani’s spy network. Upsetting the fragile partnership Roger and Hani have forged, Ed’s ideas threaten to botch their carefully designed plans. Hani is played beautifully by British actor Strong with a slightly creepy menace that makes one wonder whose side he’s on. In a way, he’s a mirror image of Ed, and just as self-important.

The object of the hunt in Body of Lies is Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul) who, like Osama bin Laden in another part of the world, controls a vast terrorist organization that has exploded bombs from Iraq to Amsterdam. Rather than being frightening, he at first seems as affable as a rug merchant. But he is now focusing his terrorist plots more on Europe and then, potentially, the United States, which is why Roger’s operation is so important.

Although the screenplay by William Monahan, who won an Academy Award for his script of The Departed, is complex, it is surprisingly easy to follow as the action leapfrogs from Iraq to Jordan to Amsterdam to Syria and includes a fake terrorist operation to smoke out the real terrorist operation. Along the way Roger meets a pretty Iranian nurse named Aisha (Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani), who has fled to Jordan and finds in Roger a dashing yet sweetly sensitive man. Though he changes identities and dialects with ease, with Aisha he can finally let down the mask and be himself, a man of surprising kindness and compassion. Aisha later will play a part in Roger’s most frantic and daring plans, which provides a great deal of tension.

Body of Lies doesn’t have the same quotient of violence found in some of Scott’s other films, including Crowe’s Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. Monahan’s script, for all its foot chases through bustling markets and dangers in remote desert hideouts, is more cerebral. It is as much a battle of wills between Ed and Roger as it is about trying to stop a terrorist attack. But it moves quickly, and in DiCaprio and Crowe he has two adversaries of equal weight.

Crowe’s Ed, both funny and a little scary, is the man who thinks he has all the characters pigeonholed and all the answers to complex problems, barging his way into places he knows little about. DiCaprio’s Roger, having lived so long in the Middle East, understands that patience and carefully built connections are the only answer to solving the riddles of the region. One can identify readily with his intelligence, and then fear for him as DiCaprio takes Roger to very dangerous places.

****Body of Lies

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac, Simon McBurney.

Rated: R, contains violence, profanity.

mjanuson@projo.com