A rich couple is held for ransom in their own home and must
escape their abductors before they outlive their usefulness. CRIME/DRAMA
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Trespass (2011)Directed by Joel Schumacher
Written by Karl Gajdusek Starring Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman, Ben Mendelsohn, Liana Liberato, Cam Gigandet, Jordana Spiro, Dash Mihok |
Trespass is one of those films that flies way under everybody's radar due to its supremely bad reputation and embarrassing lack of box office return. It's one of Nicolas Cage's many, many paycheck films in recent years and Joel Schumacher even managed to drag poor Nicole Kidman into this. Yet, even with all these red flags, the film isn't half-bad. Trespass is a decent home invasion flick that sports a handful of decent performances and invests enough time in crafting its characters that I actually care when they're in danger. I never thought I'd be endorsing another Nic Cage film, but stranger things have happened.
Cage and Kidman do a serviceable job as a husband and wife who are pushed to their limit when a team of thugs breaks into their home and holds them for ransom. The standout is character actor Ben Mendelsohn, who plays the thug in charge, Elias. He's one of those actors who can't help but do a good job even when the film is clearly a paycheck gig. There's a great deal of suspense surrounding every scene and once you start to realize what truly brought these thugs to this specific house, the story becomes engaging. My biggest gripe with the film is that it didn't go as far as it could've gone. The villains never made good on their threats and whenever it looked like something serious was about to go down, it almost always fizzled into nothing. Had the filmmakers had the balls to turn this from a crime/drama into full-blown horror, this would be an entirely different review. When weighed against the kind of films that Nic Cage has been churning out for the past six years, Trespass is among the more entertaining. It does a good job creating a claustrophobic story that even you feel trapped in. It's funny because there's nothing about this film that should work. Directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Nicolas Cage, and released in theaters for only ten days. Yet, it's worth watching for some mild entertainment so long as you can't find something better. |