Day 58 -- Tresspass

Released: October 14th, 2011

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Nicole Kidman, Cam Gigandet, Ben Mendelsohn, Jordana Spiro

Writer/Director: Karl Gajdusek/Joel Schumacher

Description: As they're held for ransom, a husband and wife's predicament grows more dire amid the discovery of betrayal and deception.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

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After watching a film that showcased Cage's skills as an actor, it was disappointing to follow that up with a borderline unwatchable film. The home invasion movies are always dumb because there's only so much story you can tell in one location. "Panic Room" is the closest to being a good story for this sub-genre.

"Trespass" is a limited release film that really shouldn't have been green-lit to begin with. There are no original ideas to be found in the 90-plus minute running time. Even the attempted twist are poorly thought out and become convoluted by the end of the film. The most impressive one was rendered moot by the final twist.

The Miller family is held for ransom in the home by four thugs that all have their own motives. While in theory this is appears to be a fresh take, the execution is poor. The leader is there to pay off a debt, his brother is in love with Sarah (Kidman), his girlfriend is a junkie, and a hired gun of the dealer that the leader owes money, and they don't add another more depth to the characters. There are feigned attempts to add back story, but each one is dumber and more predictable than the last. 

It didn't help that none of the actors that played the thugs were any good. Jordana Spiro, who I absolutely loved in "My Boys", was completely miscast as the junkie girlfriend, and Cam Gigandet looked like he was going to cry the entire movie, which was awful for that character. In Gigandet's case, I wonder if he thought being on the verge of crying was a good why to show a psychotic break, but it was a terrible choice nonetheless. The leader played by Ben Mendelsohn was really bad, and his shouting matches with Cage made laugh instead of feel tense.

Acting is only one piece of a poorly constructed film, writing is probably the biggest one, and this script should have been lit on fire. The dialogue held no consequence and the conflicts were more forced than natural. There were way too many twist in the plot, and at no point did you feel the villains could get away with it. But it didn't start so bad, the first "shocking" moment was that Kyle (Cage) had nothing in his safe, and was broke. This was different, but they threw it away by having Gigandet find a stack of money hidden in an unfinished wall. Talk about cliché.

The look of the film was boring as well. The Miller's lived in this beautiful modern house that was barely shown off, and the rooms shown were dark and bleak. I'm sure the movie's tone was part of the reason for this, but during the first act, they had ample time to display their wealth. Also, they gave us no reason to believe that the dealer's hired goon wouldn't have killed everyone after learning that Kyle had nothing in the safe. There was no reason for his mercy, especially after we learned that they had already recovered the lost drugs. All around poor job of story telling.

On the Cage front, he did his recent line reading choice of either screaming or whispering every line of dialogue. I assume his character was supposed to be a hustler, but Nick kept fluctuating him between a crazy person and someone scared shitless. Even for 21st century Cage, this was an awful decision. 

"Trespass" was a bad attempt to be a psychological action thriller. Even "The Ref" had more tension than this movie. It's a shame, Cage and Kidman have reached that point in their careers where they mail in performances to get paycheck, but here we are. This is the perfect example of a movie ruined because of its lack of a strong supporting cast, and should reenforce to every director and casting department that it's more than the marquee names that make a film watchable.

 Rating: 3.5/10 -- Terrible, terrible movie. It was essentially 90 minutes of screaming and Nick Cage in over-sized glasses. The character of the daughter was vastly under used and really could have been left out, which again points to both bad writing and bad casting.