Nicolas Cage has been on a bad movie streak for a while now. Every now and then he makes a winner, but most are forgettable B-movies that he agrees to do for a paycheck: You can't blame the man for doing his job. However, not all B-movies are bad - in fact, they're ideal entertainment if you want to sit back, relax, and shut off your brain for a couple hours. Trespass provides that mindless entertainment in spades, with a few head-scratches along the way.
The premise of Trespass is simple: Nic Cage plays a diamond dealer who lives in a beautiful house with his wife and daughter, and some thugs break into the house one day to steal his stash. Nicole Kidman plays his wife who feels distant from her hard-working husband, and the daughter is a typical rebellious teen that sneaks out and goes to a party behind her parents' back. Nothing special.
What makes this movie interesting is the performances. Cage taps into his subtlety - something he rarely does these days - which helps the tension and uneasiness of the atmosphere build until he finally bursts (on more than one occasion). And you never really know what is going through his head. These characters have secrets, all of them, and herein lies most of the film's faults.
The villains in this movie are a mixed bag. Each of the burglars have their own agenda that we find out over the course of the movie through the use of flashbacks and security cam footage. Some of the reveals are a pleasant surprise, others leave you scratching your head. It gets to the point that they're trying to intertwine all these villains' motives together but it ends up feeling forced and underwhelming. However, it is nice that they tried to do something different. Also Ben Mendelsohn's performance as the lead maniac and his eccentric back-and-forth between Cage really adds to the gravity of the situation and makes for a gripping protagonist-antagonist dynamic.
So to wrap up, this is not a thinking man's movie. You can try to put all the pieces together at the end but you'll only end up confused and disappointed - it's not worth the effort. The best thing you can do is grab some popcorn, turn off your brain and watch the events unravel before your eyes. You won't remember this movie as one of Cage's best that's for sure, but it's far from his worst. A good date movie? Sure. It's only 90 minutes, and if you're a fan of Nicolas Cage, you'll surely get at least some enjoyment from Trespass.
