Trespass

DIRECTOR: Joel Schumacher

CAST: Nicholas Cage, Nicole Kidman and Liana Liberato

CLASSIFICATION: 16 LV

RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes

RATING: **

A beautiful wife and daughter, a thriving business and a stunning house you could shoot an episode of Top Billing in. You can’t take those into the afterlife.

Diamond dealer Kyle Miller (Cage) finds this out the hard way when his house is broken into while he and his family are inside. In Schumacher’s so-so psycho thriller, the robbers mean business. Literally.

A man who wears rose-tinted sunnies and drives a Porsche Carrera S is thought to be loaded. As one of the masked men who hold them up at gunpoint points to a safe and says: “I know there are diamonds in there that are smaller than my pinkie, but worth more than a Porsche.” But why won’t Kyle give them what they want?

From the director of Batman Forever and Phone Booth, this story (which has more valleys than peaks) of how trust plays a major factor in business and pleasure, sees frequent collaborators, Schumacher, Kidman and Cage work together once more. Nicole Kidman brings her steely eyes to the party and gives a strong portrayal of a desperate woman who will stop at nothing to keep her family together. She plays Sarah, the super stay-at-home mom and wife of Kyle.

She even predictably attempts to use her womanly wiles to trick the psychotic mask man (who fools his team into thinking the tic-tacs he is popping into his mouth are his medication) into believing she may like him too. All Sarah wants in life is reciprocity from her detached husband.

The couple’s wealth borders on obscene and the resentment oozing from the extortionists is, unlike their masks, thinly veiled.

Through their disgust they make it known that they want the diamonds and the dollars and they’re not afraid to get blood on their hands to get what they want. But the cracks in the relationship between the criminals start to show. The suspense in the first half-hour of Trespass effortlessly holds the attention of the viewer. The string-filled musical score intensifies the frequent acts of deceit while the lighting – especially the fluorescent warmth of flashbacks that fill in the blanks – is bright and shiny for a dark tale. In the end, Trespass is a good film to see if you’re watching at home and wondering if you should get a safe for your house but not if you’re hoping to get your mind stimulated.

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