Maybe that would be a better twist, but the thread isn’t “come up with a better version of a common trope”, it’s “What is extremely common in TV or movies, etc.”, and the “trusted superior turning out to be in cahoots with the bad guys” trope is extra-extremely common.
See Air Force One for a prime example.
Mission: Impossible 
Witness is another example (albeit a great film).
Also…
Minority Report
And
LA Confidential
Both having very similar scenes where someone goes to the trusted authority figure to tell them about a theory they have on a particular crime, unwittingly revealing to said authority that they know more than he thinks is acceptable, and are hence done away with.
24 was good for this one. Not only do people who’ve been desk jockeys their whole career turn out to be bad guys, they’re also somehow highly skilled genius-level assassins.
Both of those options have played out in different seasons of the TV show 9-1-1 Lonestar.
What is way, WAY overdone is for a US intelligence agency to suddenly decide it has to kill off a couple or more or it’s top agents- retired or no. Of course that backfires.
I gave up on 24 after the first season, when the same person was kidnapped three times in one day. Speaking of “almost never happens in real life” … !
How about a courier having a briefcase handcuffed to their arm to transport secret papers?
That’s how I bring lunch to work.
Gotta be hell going through the X-ray machine.
And a big ATTA-BOY for Dewey_Finn
If you’re the President of the United States in an action movie, at least one of the high level Secret Service agents on your personal duty is going to betray you, often for a really contrived reason.
Yeah-- the Holloywood CIA and the Hollywood Secret Service doesn’t vet those guys real well.
I ran into one that’s not extremely common but I’ve run across before: someone’s about to kill themselves when someone else tries to kill them, prompting them to drop everything to figure out why. But I know there’s a general trope that someone prevented for any reason (from talked off the ledge to the answering the phone) in the movies or on tv never tries again.
The Real Life CIA and iirc Secret Service still uses the Polygraph- which is about as scientific as tea leaves.
It’s an interrogation tool that can be effective. The interpretation of the results are nonsense, but the subject doesn’t always understand that.
The Secret Service has claimed their agents more reliably detect false statements than the polygraph, or any other service of government. No idea what that was based on.
Oh yes, some places really do polygraph tests, although they can’t be admitted in courst.It still looks bad if you turn one down. I once had to take a polygraph test and was denied a job due to the results saying I exhibited prevarication. I did NOT lie and so I know for a fact they are unreliable or can be fooled.
I was once in a class given by a Secret Service polygraph expert. The class wasn’t about polygraph, it was an interview class. He freely admitted most of his success was due to his ability to interview not the polygraph. Some of it was because of his talent (which he had I saw videos but much of it was because he conducted more formal interviews in a month than most cops do in a career. Part of it was also nerves due to the machine. Some people give it all up in the pre-interview before the machine is hooked up.
I know we have covered Miranda in this thread so I won’t get into that. Something I’ve seen several times on TV recently has been someone being told there was a warrant for their arrest and then demanding to see a copy of the arrest warrant because it was their right before submitting to the arrest. Sorry but that’s not the case. It’s 2024. Warrants are electronic. I can print out a copy if you want it back at headquarters when we get there but there isn’t a printer in the car. You are getting arrested first. It’s possible under certain circumstances the cop might have a paper copy with him but legally it’s enough that the validity of the warrant was verified electronically.
So you’re telling me, “Wanted Dead or Alive” posters are electronic too? I despair.