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4 stars****

As soon as you know Ridley Scott is directing you know you’re going to get a full on package and he gives us exactly what we expect in this updated spy thriller. The west has stopped chasing the Russians; their place is now firmly taken by Arab terrorists.

William Monahan has completed an excellent screenplay for this film. He cranks it along at a fast pace full of twists and turns so that I felt I was in the cinema for ninety minutes when I was, in fact, there for well over two hours.

Placing an American who looks like an American behind enemy lines in an Arab state might be a clever giveaway for the locals, but to ensure he has connections with the Arab state, which they can torture either about later, they give him an Arab girlfriend. We, as viewers, know this is all wrong, but as a movie it works very well.

The action hits you hard from the very first five minutes. Just as you’re sitting comfortably waiting for the movie to really start it blows up in your face, literally. I’ve never been to Iraq, I’ve never been around when a suicide bomber commits his murder, but I know feel that I have a close idea to what it might be like. Hopefully I’ll never really know.

It’s bizarre that when Leonardo DeCaprio (brilliant here and in both Blood Diamond and The Departed) appears in a scene with Mark Strong, he appears to be the supporting actor. Strong’s Jordanian role (complete with never failing accent) in this movie is exemplary. While we know him from his many television appearances and Fever Pitch, he is now gaining ground as a top line actor able to find a wig to suit and a character as a troublemaker of some kind. Recently we told how Rocknrolla came alive with Strong’s acting. He completes the same for this movie.

That, you would expect, to be difficult when Russell Crowe is also a star of this movie. He appears to be the spy’s boss back in Langly, but spends most of his time sorting out home chores with the children while demanding death and destruction upon Arab lands afar.

The budget was quite high at around $70 million, so it’s going to have to perform well in troubled times to make a profit before going to DVD and downloads. You can see where they spent much of the money as they move from country to country blowing up large districts with precision.

We may never know how accurate the spy satellite cameras really are, but they scare the hell out of you when you see what they might be able to do.

We just knew what would happen when DeCaprio was being tortured to death. It’s not really a spoiler to say the saving of his life came down to James Bond last second timing.

They left the movie lingering on a possible franchise footing. David Ignatius wrote the original book from which this screenplay evolved. I wonder if he’s written the follow up yet?