Review of Trespass (2011) by Quincytheodore — 15 Dec 2011

I've gotta wonder how many times more would I got suckered watching a movie that has Nicholas Cage on it. "Hey, at least it has Nicole Kidman on it," I thought to myself. She didn't help much though. Trespass is a thriller movie a la Panic Room, and not as good. It's often needlessly noisy, tiresome and slightly over-the-top. Imagine trapped inside a house and there are continuous shouting between the robbers and the victims, "I'll shoot!", "Please don't!", "I want your money, wife and daughter." repeated all over again.

Its story is a wealthy family got caught in a robbing in their own mansion of a house. The robbers know that Kyle (Nicholas Cage) is a diamond dealer and living with his wife and daughter. They go in with guns and Kyle counters with his mouth. Over the course of the movie, they banter back and forth with almost the same result; nowhere. This isn't witty exchange of increasingly clever moves in one setting like Panic Room, but more of abuse of violence and screaming.

The robbers are not exactly smart, I can't think of anyone who would bring delusional psycho or wrecked addict into a job. It might get away with all the screaming, shooting, windows breaking due to quite neighborhood, but it gets a bit comical after a couple of shout out exchanges. The wife (Nicole Kidman) is quite good. Her expressions are more vibrant, but the dialogues don't give her the best opportunity. Nicholas Cage is a bit unintentionally silly on his delivery and might break the pace.

Still there's a bit of suspense to be had here. The characters all have emotional baggage and individual story, albeit not that well told. Their motivations are a tad quirky and the only thing you'll remember is how they use profanity to invoke emotion from audience. Don't get me wrong, a well placed F bomb can be effective, but the use here is just brash and distasteful. I don't get the lady robber character, whether she's supposed to be a comic relief or not. The things she does don't make sense, it's partially rude yet chuckle inducing.

It has a bit of twists, but they are predictable. I think the director wanted to be realistic in depicting the characters, especially Cage, in a believable scenario. But it ends up the opposite, some scenes are actually not that entertaining and just funny out of context. It doesn't have much restraint and everything is full blown aggressively.