Review of The Trust (2016) by Patrick L — 17 Aug 2016

"It's nice to see Nic Cage back to his old Cagey self but "The Trust" is a heist thriller that betrays it's own convictions".

Movie Review: The Trust.

Date Viewed: May 16 2016.

Directed By Alex Brewer and Ben Brewer.

Written By Ben Brewer and Adam Hirsch.

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Elijah Wood, Ethan Suplee, Kenna James, Sky Ferreira, Kevin Weisman, Steven Williams and Jerry Lewis.

Nicolas Cage has had a lot of wrong turns and car crashes over the past several years. After "Drive Angry", "Trespass", "Pay the Ghost", "Outcast", "Ghost Rider" and "Left Behind", Cage finally seems to realize that he needs bring his once distinguished career back from the dead. His new film "The Trust" wasn't the comeback vehicle I was hoping for but at least it's a start. It's nice to see Nic Cage back to his old Cagey self but "The Trust" is a heist thriller that betrays it's own convictions.

In addition to Cage giving another manic performance, Elijah Wood plays his partner, famous singer/songwriter Sky Ferreira as a female hostage and legendary comic Jerry Lewis (yes, I'm not kidding, the Jerry Lewis!) as Cage's father. Set in Las Vegas, "The Trust" is about two corrupt police officers who are bored with their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. Lieutentant Stone (Cage) and his friend Sergeant Waters (Wood) work in the evidence room unit of the Las Vegas Metropolitian Police Department.

When Stone looks through case files, he uncovers the file of a drug dealer whose bail receipt shows that he paid $200,000. Stone decides to use his vacation days to do undercover work at the same hotel where the drug dealer works and discovers that all of his merchandise is being delivered to one building where apparently the dealer and his gang have built a large safe in the back of a freezer at a local convenient store. Stone and Waters hatch a plan to steal whatever loot is in the safe and use it to go off to a far away country where authorities will never know about their whereabouts, the only problem is that the safe is underneath the room of an apartment complex.

Once they go inside the apartment, they find two occupants where Stone ends up shooting one of them for not being cooperative. As Stone and Waters begin drilling beneath the convenient store to find the safe, Waters becomes attached to the remaining female hostage (Ferreira) who pleads with him to call her 3-year-old son's father to assure him that she is alright and unharmed.

The highlight of this dark comedy/thriller is Jerry Lewis, even though the 90-year-old comic legend has a small role as Stone's father, I surprisingly wanted to see more of Lewis because he is quite good in a serious role. The acting is pretty much what this movie is going for but it is never pitch-black funny and the chemistry between Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood never sticks. Directors Alex Brewer and Ben Brewer, who were the recipients of a MTV Video Music Award for making Jack U's hit single "Where Are U Now?", have marked a lackluster filmmaking debut with this lean but meandering dirty cop thriller.

The script by Ben Brewer and Adam Hirsch is glaringly unoriginal and instead of doing this movie, Cage should've used most of his free time to find better scripts. What he needs right now is more challenging and suitable roles because great people like Mike Figgis, Norman Jewison and Spike Jonze made him good in terrific movies.