Courtesy - The Sunday Leader By Sumaya Samarasinghe
Home invasion movies will never get an Oscar nomination for their scripting, simply because some person seems to have stood in front of a Xerox machine, copied it a million times and sent it to every uninspired script writer in Hollywood!
The family in peril, the invaders who all have issues and end up beating each other up, one family member (usually the father) goes from being a cold incompetent yuppie to practically a superman who will save his brood… One can guess the story’s ending five minutes after its beginning and there is nothing more frustrating when a supposedly suspense thriller becomes a predictable bore.Abiding to this rule without fail is “Trespass” directed by Joel Schumacher. One may have naively thought that things would be somewhat different with this latest version of a home invasion which after all stars Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman! Plus Schumacher himself has directed some really good and entertaining movies like A Time to Kill (1996), 8mm (1999) Phone Booth (2003) and Veronica Guerin (2003) only to name a few.
But sadly nothing has changed and Trespass’s story is exactly the same as hundreds of others badly written home invasion scenarios, and, a Xerox copy must have definitely flown over the table of Karl Gajdusek to whom we owe this pitiful screenplay.
Nicole Kidman spends most of her time teary eyed and slapped around before her last minute energetic awakening when this fragile looking woman nearly manages to take on a hardened criminal. The only remotely exciting fact in the story is that she may or may have not had a fling with one of the men who is now holding a gun at her head.
Kidman is Sarah Miller, the beautiful wife of Kyle Miller a business man and diamond dealer.They live in a palatial home with a rebellious teenage daughter. When the film begins, Kyle is coming back home to dinner being cooked by Sarah and their daughter Avery begging to go for a party.Everything looks picture perfect, but little cracks begin to appear. Kyle gets a call and says he has to miss dinner because of business and Avery slowly runs out to the forbidden party. When Sarah’s attempts for some romantic time with her husband are rejected in a not so subtle manner by Kyle, it is very clearly indicated to the viewers that the couple is in a major crisis situation.
Nicolas Cage gives one of his strangest and least appealing performances.Take this, some strange men with guns and masks come into your home to rob you, and you shout back at them slowly pronouncing every word just in case they don’t get it?!! Strange of Cage’s character did not end up with a bullet in his head twenty minutes after the beginning. Of late the actor’s financial issues seem to be getting more media coverage than his acting chops. He may be just partially to blame because poor Nicolas Cage is not dealing with the best lines at all.
“Do this or I kill her.” :
“If you kill her, I won’t do it. Let her go and I’ll give you what you want.” “No, because I know you’ll kill us when I give you what you want.”
Bordering on embarrassing actually! What doesn’t an actor have to do to pay the bills?
Alright so back to the story. This slightly dysfunctional but seemingly functional happy family living in a humongous house with no staff to do any of the cleaning and cooking ( I have always wondered about that, I mean cleaning your own room can be such a chore,how does one deal with semi palaces?) suddenly sees their peace invaded by a gang of masked robbers.They are demanding that Kyle opens up his safe which is supposedly filled up with diamonds. The more threatening they get, the least he seems inclined to save his wife and daughter. Actually you nearly wish for Kidman to run away with one of the gang members….but oh! We are watching an American movie after all and rarely do they go for twisted conclusions.
The film is violent, brutal,frankly a bit pointless and it should come as no surprise that it was an utter box office flop. Avoid if you can!a
