10. Oliver & Cheryl Lang - Arlington Road
For the majority of its runtime, Arlington Road is a perfectly fine, paranoia-filled thriller about a college professor, Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges), who becomes suspicious that his neighbours, Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins) and his wife Cheryl (Joan Cusack) might be terrorists. It seems like the film is going to be a commentary on the reactionary nature of trigger-happy Americans, but in fact, takes a far less predictable, and far more insidiously loopy turn in act three. It turns out that Oliver and Cheryl
are terrorists, and they've got a bomb primed to explode, so Michael drives to a federal building to try and warn the authorities, before realising that he has been tricked; he opens the trunk of his car, revealing a bomb, which explodes. Michael is framed as a terrorist, while Oliver and Cheryl get away scot-free, and Michael's young son goes away to live with relatives, never finding out the truth about his father being framed. It's a depressing but hilariously contrived ending that's certainly thrilling, but also extremely contrived in order to arrive at its "gotcha!" ending.