Review: ‘Trespass’
You're probably not going to like "Trespass," but you definitely can't say that you were bored if you do sit through it. Directed by Joel Schumacher, the movie is like his last film, the desperate-to-be-edgy New York City teen drug drama "Twelve," in that it finds him trying anything and everything to keep you entertained at every single second. (At this point, casting Nicolas Cage in your movie is less about box office and more an official declaration that, hey, it's time to get nuts.) So while this home-invasion thriller isn't good at all, it's oddly watchable. But, please, don't take that as a recommendation to seek it out.
"Trespass" stars Cage and Nicole Kidman as Kyle and Sarah, a rich married couple who live out in the middle of nowhere in a gated house with a security system and a pool and whatever else the film's production designer thinks would give off the impression that they're loaded. They have a mouthy teen daughter (Liana Liberato) but, all in all, they can't complain.
That's when a group of robbers (led by Ben Mendelsohn) storm the house while the daughter is away, taking Kyle and Sarah hostage. The burglars have one simple request: They want the uncut diamonds that Kyle has in his safe because of his work as a precious-stones dealer. But Kyle knows that if he opens the safe, they'll kill him and Sarah. And so the standoff begins.
Back in the '90s, Schumacher was one of Hollywood's most bankable directors with his Batman and John Grisham films, but after the critical brickbats he received over "Batman & Robin" he never made another tentpole and has since wandered from project to project, some good (the stripped-down "Tigerland"), some less so ("The Phantom of the Opera"). But what seems more and more clear is that this is a filmmaker who doesn't seem all that worried about his legacy: He just wants to have fun. In theory, that can be liberating, but with "Trespass" what it mostly means is a campy, hyperbolic style in which kinkiness and ludicrous plot points are played to the hilt, almost daring you to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Speaking of absurd, Cage at this point in his career is the actor equivalent of what's become of Schumacher: undisciplined, outrageous for the sake of being outrageous, not nearly as fun as he thinks he is. To be fair, Cage has his moments as a man who decides not to give in to his captors' demands, occasionally proving to be as psychotic as they are, but he long ago lost his tether to what could be described as recognizable human behavior in a performance. Even when he's meant to be low-key, he's simply too buggy, too twitchy; it's as if he's permanently encased in a realm of total unreality.
In comparison to her director and co-star, Kidman is a lifeboat for the audience, a safe haven from all the over-emoting around her. If it's true that sometimes the best way to gauge actors' greatness is by seeing how they conduct themselves in a total piece of garbage, then Kidman deserves some sort of accolades for what she goes through in "Trespass," which includes being intensely sexually harassed by not one but two of the robbers but also playing off Cage's bug-eyed unpredictability. God bless her, she really put her heart into this.
With the movie almost happening in real time, "Trespass" is a thriller that lives or dies by its twists and its characters' shifting allegiances to one another. (It's hopefully not giving anything away to report that this isn't a wholly random burglary.) But while Karl Gajdusek's screenplay starts off with a couple of clever surprises, it can't leave well enough alone, twisting and twisting and teasing and teasing and then twisting again. Pretty soon, you figure out that you shouldn't believe anything that you're seeing on the screen because, rather quickly, some new piece of information will come along to change the situation. Schumacher, Cage and Kidman are all big names, so I can't say I feel entirely bad for them, but my heart did go out to Mendelsohn, who was so terrific as the dangerously murderous oldest son in last year's great "Animal Kingdom." The Australian actor deserves a big Hollywood career -- if that's what he wants, of course -- and he's legitimately unsettling in "Trespass." But what does it matter? He's in "Trespass." Who's going to bother seeing it?
Grade: C-
