A film review by Craig J. Koban November 10, 2011 |
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TRESPASS
Kyle: Nicolas Cage / Sarah: Nicole Kidman / Elias: Ben
Mendelsohn / Avery: Liana Liberato / Jonah: Cam Gigandet |
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Home invasion thrillers should derive their tension and nail biting suspense based on their tightly confined and claustrophobic environments. It’s derived from the common and universal fear that every family has of having the sanctity and privacy of their homes invaded by outsiders. Even on those modest levels of intrigue, TRESPASS should have worked. Unfortunately, the
film contains phoned-in and stilted direction by Schumacher (a director
that has made some good thrillers before: 8mm and PHONE BOOTH come to mind), a screenplay
that careens from one ham infested and unintentionally hilarious plot
twist to the next, and contains performances by nearly all of its actors
that are so histrionically caffeinated that it appears that Red Bull was
administered intravenously to them on set.
All things considered, TRESPASS could have risen to the dubious
class of a B-grade exploitation flick that was intentionally schlocky, but
the film does not even deserve the moniker of being so bad, it’s good: it’s
just so much of the former. The film opens
serenely enough:
Nicolas Cage stars as diamond broker Kyle Miller who is on his way
back to his isolated and lavish country home.
He seems permanently fixated on his smart phone, apparently trying
to finish the ultimate deal.
He's a man that has everything: a hot trophy wife, Sarah (Nicole
Kidman), a loving, if not a bit rebellious teen daughter (Liana Liberato),
and a house that most people would only dream of affording.
Then, without any warning, their home is invaded.
The criminals are
of the cardboard cut-out variety as far as villains go: There’s the
leader, Elia (Ben Mendelsohn); his tough guy muscle, Ty (Dash Myhok); a
druggy-stripper, Petal (Jordana Spiro); and Jonah (Brad Pitt/Paul Walker
love-child look-alike Cam Gigandet), who Sarah recognizes as the security man that
installed the family surveillance system…and who may or may not have had a
tawdry affair with Sarah on the side.
The film makes pathetic attempts at playing cat and mouse games
with the audience by flashing back and forward in time to show events that
certainly lead people to believe that Sarah is romantically linked to the
unhinged Jonah, but it flips sides so bloody often that I grew dizzy just
keeping track.
And if you think the film’s many attempts at layering one inane plot twist after plot twist on viewers is not dreadful enough, the screenplay by Karl Gajdusek even goes as far as to provide a real knee slapper of a motivation for the invasion itself. I would like to say that the back-and-forth battle of wits between Kyle and Elias’ entourage simmers with compelling intensity, but I was often bowling over with laughter so much at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole affair that it became really difficult to remind myself that this is supposed a thriller. The ending as well is so abysmally constructed and arrived upon that I simply found myself checking my watch far too much, especially for a film barely 90 minutes long to begin with. TRESPASS is a scant 88 minutes, but it felt like 188. The film also contains
career-low performances for the key personal involved, most of them being
so aggressively nonsensical and hyperactively and unabashedly over-the-top
that you just start to stare at them, open mouthed and aghast, with a sense of
perverse interest.
Here’s a film where most of its participants nastily and constantly scream and
shriek through their exchanges throughout, throwing out
multiple varieties of various four and twelve letter usages of the F-bomb
with an ear-punishing lack of decorum.
I can forgive actors like Gigandet, for example, for showing
absolutely no restraint or discipline in his work.
However, too many other good and revered actors that have
demonstrated restraint and conviction in the past populate this mess of a
film.
A great actress like Kidman, for instance, deserves far better than
a shrieking wife role that could have been occupied by so many other
disposable, low-grade performers.
This brings me to
Mr. Cage.
Nic, Nic, Nic. Poor Nic. I feel for him.
Very few actors of his generation have been as simultaneously
praised and scalded for their alternatively inspired and terrible
performances and film choices like him.
He’s been in some of the more memorable films of the last decade-plus (LORD
OF WAR, THE WEATHER MAN, and MATCHSTICK MEN come to mind) and some
of the biggest stinkers (see THE WICKER MAN and, BANGKOK
DANGEROUS).
In TRESPASS Cage almost transcends the notion of horrible acting by
being almost fascinatingly horrendous here. I’ve been an apologist of
the actor when he really cuts loose and lets his feverous and deliriously
unhinged intensity sell a role (like BAD LIEUTENANT), but here he spits
and bellows out dialogue so wickedly and restlessly that he almost becomes
a parody of his own frenzied image.
TRESPASS only
succeeds as a rotten exercise in downright and senseless mediocrity.
It represents another huge disappointment for Schumacher, who with
this film and his last that I saw (the ludicrously poor THE
NUMBER 23) seems to be gunning for the number spot of one purveyor
of low grade, trashy thriller cinema.
If you’re still not convinced of TRESPASS’ low worth, then
considering the following: It cost over $31 million; was given a sparse
theatrical release on October 14, during which it grossed a disastrously low
sum of just $24,000 (making it one of the cinema’s biggest bombs ever);
and it was unceremoniously dumped
- and mostly likely abandoned and disowned by all involved – to
the murky and disreputable waters of the direct-to-video market.
Convinced now? |
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