Trespass (2011)

So you have this group of thugs that break into Nic Cage and Nicole Kidman’s house.  They’re looking for diamonds ‘cause that’s what Cage deals in but of course shit doesn’t go as planned and…stuff…kind of happens, I guess.

I’ll get right to the point and say that this thing felt very lazy, by the numbers and trite.  It’s almost like the filmmakers were trying to create the blandest thriller they could devise.  The gang that breaks into the house is your typical fare filled out with a leader that appears to be ruthless but doesn’t seem to actually want to hurt anyone, his younger pretty boy brother that’s kinda dumb and gullible, a bulldog that’s hard to keep on the chain in the form of a formidable muscular dude and the leader’s girlfriend/wife that gets scared very easily and panics at the drop of a hat.  None of these characters are interesting or very threatening.  Throughout the whole film they constantly give Cage and his family one last chance to hand the diamonds over but never follow through on actually beating them or torturing them.  Well, Cage gets his hand broken at one point but that’s about it.  And it’s not enough for him to want to fork over the goods.  He’s real stubborn.

Cage is the second most disappointing thing about this picture (I’ll get to the first in a second).  He’s not over the top but I guess that fits because he’s supposed to be a stuffy prick of a business man and not Castor Troy.  And it’s not that Cage shouldn’t go for roles like this but more like he needs to make sure the plot is outrageous enough to engulf the somewhat boring character.  For instance he plays it down in Season of the Witch but it’s about him fighting supernatural creatures during the middle ages so it kinda works out alright.  With this picture it just involves him trying to stay cool under pressure while some incompetent robbers attempt to push him around without much luck.  The gross haircut and needlessly big glasses are nice touches but don’t make up for his middle of the road performance of a middle of the road character.

The greatest disappointment though is Schumacher.  He was doing so well with his new shit like Blood Creek and Twelve, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.  That expert eye that I said he possesses in my Twelve review seems to be absent here.  This one feels more like an inexperienced director’s stab at a thriller.  Instead of cutting the bullshit to leave more meat like he had been doing it’s all bullshit with very little substance to sink your teeth into.  What the fuck was Schumacher thinking?  There’s never a lot of tension, action, suspense or believability that these bad guys are going to do shit.  I haven’t seen all of Schumacher’s films but I have seen over 50% of them and this might be the worst so far. 

This movie can be summed up by saying that it’s an inexcusable waste of Cage and Schumacher’s talents.  And also that it’s just kind of a Panic Room rip off.  I mean I thought Panic Room was kinda lame too (with the exception of Dwight Yoakam, I would love to see more movies with him as the villain) and this is a worse version of the same idea. 

It ain’t no 8MM (that was a pretty weird and cool picture) or Batman Forever (this one gets a lot of flak but I think it’s a lot of fun and really not that much worse than Batman Returns).  It’s Uninspired: The Movie.  Hopefully this is only a hiccup for Schumacher and he’ll get back into the groove with his next film.  As for Cage, he definitely has some great movies left in him (or at least great performances) and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down either.  I doubt Schumacher and Cage will cross paths again but if they do, of course, I’ll be the first in line to check it out.  I still want to see Falling Down 2.