Review of Trespass (2011) by Maksim B — 25 Sep 2012

Undeservedly trashed by the critics, Trespass may not be the best example of a thrilling Joel Schumacher delivery , but it has a certain claustrophobic grip on the audience which makes this movie a mediocre criminal suspense. It is decently captivating, a bit more aggressive than normally and definitely it suffers from having extremely unconvincing and unprofessional burglars.

What Joel Schumacher is trying to do with this movie is to combine well-known cliches into a movie which aspires to be as thrilling as Phone Booth. Frankly speaking the first 30 minutes are thrilling enough and the movie has all chances to impress. What happens next is that Trespass becomes way too complicated involving a possible cheating wife, a criminal who is fanatically in love with Nicole Kidman and even more a band of bad guys who are in fact pressured to do this nasty robbery (the final twist with regard to the band is totally out of place, as well) . These sub-plots add an unnecessary feeling that the whole thing going on in Nicolas Cage's house is a total mess.

The cast suffers from the same issues as the movie. There are some bright performances and some disappointing characters. Surprisingly (at least to me), Nicolas Cage delivers a convincing performance as a broke diamond dealer and he is perfectly matched by Nicole Kidman's performance of his faithful wife. What truly disappoints is the band conducting the robbery. This is probably the least professional group of burglars and the least unconvincing one since Panic Room with Jodie Foster. The more the movie approaches the final credits, the more absurd everything seem to be.

Trespass is not a good movie and this could be stated with certainty. However, it succeeds to captivate and to involve fully the audience into the story and even though it may disappoint towards the second half, it still can keep its grip on the audience until the final credits. A mediocre movie, which could be watched if there is nothing else to see.