I finally got around to seeing Body of Lies, the Russell Crowe-Leonardo DiCaprio thriller from last summer. I never got the opportunity to see it in theaters, though I tried … multiple times. Unfortunately, it was in and out of theaters so fast that I’ve had to sit and wait patiently for it to come out on video. Finally, I was able to download the video via iTunes and watched it Monday night.

It was an amazing movie … but not the one that was advertised.

The following is a preview of the movie.  Actually, it’s the one that talked me in to watching the film in the first place.  Watch through it, then click to read the rest of the post for my explanation of why Body of Lies disappeared so quickly from theaters …

From the trailer, I gathered this was a suspensful, action-packed, cat-and-mouse thriller.  It paints Crowe’s character as the disconnected, corrupt mentor of DiCaprio’s character.  I expected the entire plot to hinge on the alleged betrayal and distrust between the two — a real psychological thriller.

Instead, I saw an amazing juxtaposition of luxurious, somewhat globally-apathetic, American culture in a time of war and what appeared to be the desolate state of Muslim culture and standards of living in the middle east.  It really put the “war on terror” into perspective by comparing, side-by-side, the relative luxury and security of a family soccer game with the turmoil and strife of a war-stricken third world society.

Body of Lies is an incredible movie.  It entertains, educates, and challenges logic.  It’s disappointing to see that the film failed to receive high marks by the critics or lasted longer than it’s (less interesting) competitor, Eagle Eye, in the box office.  At the same time I can tell you exactly why these two things happened.

The movie trailer did not accurately represent the movie.

Just like the Max Payne trailer I argued against some time ago, this is a deceptive advertisement that damaged any chance the film had at wild success.  While the movie itself is fantastic, too many people felt cheated when they left the cinema for any kind of word-of-mouth or referral marketing to take off.  It’s also next to impossible to build a successful marketing campaign when the backbone of your efforts is a preview that doesn’t actually represent your product.

Bait-and-switch is never an effective marketing tool.  We’ve seen great products suffer when their brand managers employ the strategy, and we’ve just seen yet another wonderful piece of cinematic art suffer as well.

So think for a minute, how accurate are your advertisements?