"Box office 5 please"

Steven Hawking, who UCI cinemas seem to have poached from the Post Office and Woolworths as offical bingo caller, tells us to walk towards the flashing light on the till. We are going to see the "A History of Violence" starring Aragon, son of Arathorn and "Random Blonde Actress #5278". It should be a good movie - the reviewers said so. And they wouldn't tell porkies would they?

And then I find out what the movie is about and I get deja vu. The movie tells an everyday tale of a man running a coffee shop who also happens to have been an everyday mob hit man. This is more common place than you would imagine. First there was A long kiss goodnight, then there was The Bourne Identity and the Bourne Supremecy and of course Kill Bill.

So I decide to save myself a bit of time and play the movie in my head before it starts. Man / Woman is normal and has lovely Wife / Husband and at least one lovely kid and they live together in a white picket fenced old colonial house in Anytown USA. Someone shows up from their past and accidently recognises. Hillarity ensues as other people show up. Lots of people die and the the Hero(ine) goes back to living a normal life.

Since I already know what the movie is about, I decide to count how many blatantly obvious product placements there are. In the first fifteen minutes I count at least three references to "Coffee" and one to "Baseball". Then I have an epiphany. I begin to realise that this movie is a bit slanted but it turns out, it's not the movie, it's my glasses.

They have never been the same since they got a close up look of the sole of My Canadian Friend's foot. I wiggle the arms a little bit and then POP! The right lens comes out of the frame. The movie looks all fuzzy without my glasses on, so I struggle to get the lens back in. It is a hard enough task in the light but in the dark it's impossible. I'm wiggling and poking the lens. And then suddenly, I swear I saw "Random Blonde Actress #5278"'s muff. I quickly flick my glasses up and see a nipple, sending the half in half out lens spiralling to the floor. After rooting through five day old popcorn, the remainder of a hot dog and the person infront's hand bag, I find it. The lens pops in and I can resume watching the movie.

Ah, we're up to the part where the people who know his past show up - Chrysler!
Then some people die, Strider lives, the movie ends and it sucks.
After seeing it, I want to create some violence on those movie reviewers that convinced Matt it'd be a good movie.

Now I have to wonder, if this can happen in at least a dozen Hollywood movies, I have to wonder if any of my friends are really mob hitmen. Will even writing this alert them to the fact that I am on to them? This could be serious. I could be whacked! I could wake up to find Ruud Van Nistelroy's head in my bed and then swim with the fishes. And I can't swim!