Three Movie Clichès I Am Tired Of

1. Surprise! I'm Wearing a Wire! (Or recording you on a tape player, etc.)

Of the three, this is the least annoying movie clichè, because if I were in these situations I would also be wearing a wire. However, it's getting old. It's anti-climactic. Get the bad guy to admit something and then say, "Gotch! It's all on tape." Once again, if I ever managed to get myself wrapped up in this kind of situation I'd probably have a tape recorder surgically attached to my body and fed directly to the police. But sometimes I want my movie to end with more drama.

2. Surprise! I Was Wearing a Bullet Proof Vest!

How many times do I need to watch in shock as the protagonist of the movie gets shot down at the end of the movie, only to sit up a few minutes later, open his shirt, and reveal a bullet proof vest? It's gotten to the point where I no longer believe bullets have any power in Hollywood. Like the tape recorder, if I ever get mixed up with the kinds of people who protagonists get mixed up with in movies, I am going to start wearing a bullet proof vest all the time. And, if I'm ever shooting somebody, I'm shooting them in the head.

One more question about this: I've never worn a bullet proof vest, but are they really this easy to put under your shirt without anyone noticing?

3. Surprise! A bus just came out of nowhere and hit you!

This was cool when it happened in Final Destination. But now vehicles are coming out of nowhere in every movie. Has no one but me noticed that this is just a really low-tech camera trick? If you zoom the camera in on the victim, when the bus speeds into the frame it is totally unexpected. But the victim doesn't have the narrow field of view of the zoomed in camera... the victim has peripheral vision. And if the victim's mother taught the victim anything, it was to look both ways before crossing the street.

In the underrated 2001 film The Mexican (with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts) they actually poke fun at this. Brad Pitt, in Mexico, looks down a road that goes on both ways into the horizon. Then the camera pulls in closer, he tries to cross the street, and a speeding truck forces him to stop. Based on the distance the truck would have had to cover in four seconds, this is clearly impossible. But that's the joke. How is it that a joke from The Mexican is being used as a dramatic plot point in serious films? I now flinch anytime the camera closes in on somebody because I think a speeding vehicle is going to mow them down.

Final Note:
Two of these three clichès are pivotal to the end of at least two of this years Acadamy Award Best Picture nominated films. In order to avoid giving anything away, I won't say which two clichès and I won't say which two films. But note that I've only seen two of the Best Picture nominees, so we're currently two-for-two.

Contest:
Find me a move that includes all three of these clichès! You will win a MixedMetaphors.net hat.