Film File - My best friend's girl

At first glance, Tank (Dane Cook) and Alexis (Kate Hudson), seem like the furthest thing from a compatible couple, and most definitely not the stuff from which romantic comedies are traditionally made. Tank is a perennial bachelor who"s turned his talent for offending and manipulating women into a lucrative side job. And Alexis, the ideal woman for any marriage-minded man, is tired of monogamous relationships and just wants casual sex. That true romance, and even love, would emerge from their unlikely pairing is the essential premise the film is built upon. A successful lawyer, Alexis begins the story by ending her relationship with obsessively overeager Dustin (Jason Biggs) and deciding to take advantage of her single status. While Tank seems like the ideal partner for commitment-free, casual sex, Alexis" emotions come into play despite her best efforts to avoid them. A self-professed bachelor with no interest in love, Tank is not your average kind of guy - particularly with his night job. Ex-boyfriends who"ve lost their girlfriends hire him to date their exes; and he ensures the experience is so awful that those girls run with newfound appreciation back to their old beaus. The 'cute meet" part of the story happens when Tank"s newest client turns out to be Dustin, and, by default, his ex, Alexis. What follows is the standard romcom situational mix - Biggs playing the wounded ex with puppy dog eyes; Cook as the veteran womaniser who loses his heart in spite of his best efforts; and Hudson as the good girl who wanted to be bad but just couldn"t manage it. It"s got touches of Knocked Up, American Pie and a few other comedies of recent inspiration as its template, and while it doesn"t stray too far from doing exactly what it says on the tin, the laughs are generally predictable and well worn. Body of Lies In the murky underworld of global espionage, power is measured not by weaponry or technology, but by the amount of vital information that can be acquired. Information is power in the spying game, and nobody does it better than Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio). He"s the top agent US covert operations have on the ground in corners of the world where the seeds of terrorism breeds, places where human life is worth no more than the information it can get you. In operations that take him around the globe, Ferris" next breath often depends on the voice at the other end of a secure phone from his controller - CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe). Tracking from a laptop in the suburbs, Hoffman is on the trail of an emerging terrorist leader, Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul), who has orchestrated a campaign of bombings while eluding all the intelligence networks in the world. To lure their quarry out into the open, Ferris and Hoffman will have to penetrate this murky world of plot and counter-plot in a game where trust is a rare commodity and death just a heartbeat away. The notion of information as the ultimate bottom line attracted director Ridley Scott to his latest project, a reality where nobody can be trusted - not even your best friend. Turn your back for a second and you will be used. Body of Lies is based on the novel of the same name by author David Ignatius, a veteran journalist who covered the CIA and Middle Eastern affairs for 10 years for The Wall Street Journal before joining The Washington Post, where he is currently an associate editor and columnist. Praised for having an unusually incisive view into what actually happens up on the front lines, and the people at the front who make a difference, the book was a smart, well-crafted spy thriller about the operatives and levels of deception it takes to penetrate a country, a culture and, ultimately, the enemy. 'A subject that has always interested me as a writer is deception, and the process by which we deceive our adversaries,' says Ignatius. 'I began thinking about how you would get inside an organization that proves nearly impossible to penetrate. If you couldn"t get inside, could you make them think you"re inside? The spy business is a lot like journalism. It"s about identifying people who know things, gaining their trust, and then getting them to cross a line and tell you things they might not want to initially.' Scriptwriter William Monaghan, who previously worked with DiCaprio on The Departed, took the project the develop the question of how an organization operates against an enemy that is extremely difficult to find. When Ferris devises a plan to lure Al-Saleem out of hiding by making it appear that a rival, and entirely fake-organization, has become as deadly and effectual as Al-Saleem"s own, the smoke and mirrors the agent conjures are cloaked in layers of subterfuge perpetrated by his own superior, Ed Hoffman - the ruthless strategist who will stop at nothing in the name of national security, even if it means sacrificing his best man in the field. As Ferris" scheme gains momentum, conflicts with his two closest allies threaten to converge with a crisis of conscience that leaves him vulnerable - will Hoffman betray him, as he has so many others? Director Ridley Scott delivers an involving if sometimes meandering spy thriller aiming some direct hits on the attitudes which have prevailed since 9/11 - and, by inference, the failed policies of the Bush administration. Centered on the duel between Ferris and the Bin Laden-type mastermind terrorist, much of the action revolves around the high-tech gagetry of modern spy craft and the strange relationship between spies facing danger in the field and their secure masterminds pressing the buttons safe in the dugouts at home. DiCaprio and Crowe combine well, helped in no small part by Monaghan"s sharp dialogue and Scott"s assured pacing. For spy buffs, the world of smoke and mirrors makes for an engaging cinema outing - but for those misled by the trailers into thinking this an all-out action flick, there will be disappointment. Body of Lies, like the world it seeks to portray, is a cloudy concoction full of blind alleys and dubious outcomes.