Movie Monday

Body of Lies (review from trailers)

The story from the trailers:
From a “quiet" trailer (no explosions, no CGI’s) we have a man in the hospital (HM) getting a phone call from another man who is in rainy weather (RM). HM says he didn’t kill someone and RM says that he (RM) did. HM wants out of something because it’s not working. RM tells him that HM is not thinking right and he should get some sleep.

We get to piece the story together in a much longer trailer. Apparently, RM and HM work for the CIA. RM says this is a global war and the enemy will not negotiate. It looks like RM is “operating” HM, who is the field man. However, HM thinks that RM is running a side operation. You know the drill from so many other movies: “good” guy is really a double agent.

There are people in Middle Eastern traditional garb so we can assume we have Middle Eastern terrorists - what a novel idea! As we watch explosions, we are told that there have been bombings in Amsterdam, London, etc., so we know this is BIG.

Many, many explosions occur. But if you count all the explosions and times that number by a large double digit number, you get the number of helicopters in the trailer. Was there a Manager’s Special Sale on helicopters?

And then there is the hokey dialogue:
“You know we’re at war.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“I will not be responsible for your safety.”
RM’s answer to what he is doing: “Saving civilization, honey.”
RM sees an explosion on the screen and says one word: “Oops.”
“I have one rule. Never lie to me.”

Who writes this stuff? Perhaps, spread out in the movie it falls into place but the gravitas it acquires in trailers makes it ridiculous.

What I expect from the trailers:
Explosions; forced dialogue; a lot of helicopters; more explosions; bad guys; good guys; bad, good guys; good, bad guys; more helicopters; a headache; a waste of 2+ hours of my life.