Trespass Movie Review

Trespass Movie Review
Directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman and Cam Gigandet.
By:stacilayne
Updated: 10-11-2011
 
I forgive Nicolas Cage his trespasses (and Trespass).
 
Trespass isn't a good movie, perhaps not even forgivable to most — but I have a soft spot for not only Cage, but the director and the rest of the cast. The setting is hardly scintillating — nothing we haven't seen before, a bit of home invasion and crazytown hanky-panky (think: Panic Room meets Fatal Attraction) — but overall I was entertained throughout the 85 minute runtime.
 
Cage portrays flaccid financier and diamond dealer Kyle Miller (could you have thought of less-powerful, more inert name for our hero, screenwriter Karl Gajdusek?). Kyle is a sweaty, nervous, overwrought man whose fortress like homestead gets broken into, his safe cracked, and his wife Sarah (Kidman) and daughter Avery (Liana Liberato) led astray.
 
The perps, led by Elias (Ben Mendelsohn) and little bro Jonah (Cam Gigandet), terrorize the family with restraints and threats of dismemberment. As this happens, sit back, relax and enjoy some hilarious histrionics from Cage; rinse, repeat. Also delightfully over the top (as ever) is the best smirker in the biz, Gigandet. With dialogue delights screamed and spat from Cage such as "What do you want from us?!" and "Your filthy lust invited them in," as well as him working words like etymology into conversation, you're sure to be entertained on some level. When scenes like these are brandished by Schumacher, you've got gold (or gems, as the case may be). Approximately as subtle as the Hope Diamond and just as cursed, Trespass doesn't try to hide its flaws.
 
Playing out rather like an upgraded Lifetime movie meshed with an updated Joan Crawford vehicle, Trespass certainly doesn't disappoint in the drama department. However, if you're looking for horror and hoping for a splash of Schumacher-styled suspense ala Flatliners (or even The Number 23) you are SOL. 
 
Having said that, it is fun to see how the pawns are brought from Point A to Point B. Schumacher, having worked with Cage and Kidman before, knows what their strengths and weaknesses are and he exploits each of them to the nth degree, bringing out their worst in the best possible way. Trespass is like old-fashioned paste: It serviceably sparkles for just as long as you need it to.
 
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Reviewed Staci Layne Wilson
 
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