Trespass | Film review

When someone gets around to compiling the inevitable YouTube montage of Nicolas Cage’s best scenes from Trespass (it’s the new Wicker Man), might we suggest, in the spirit of accurate representation, that Cage’s banshee sneers be crosscut with dumbfounded reaction shots from Ben Mendelsohn and Cam Gigandet? Cage plays a diamond dealer whose estate is invaded by a group of masked robbers, whose plan may be less airtight than Mendelsohn’s ringleader first lets on. As Cage, turning the tables, lectures them on proper negotiating tactics and taunts them with riddles like “Do you know the etymology of the word diamond?” Joel Schumacher gets startling mileage out of cutting to their confused and anguished responses. They’re as perplexed as we are.

The home-invasion scenario presents a challenge that sent even as skilled an auteur as David Fincher running to the panic room. In the hands of a filmmaker as sense-averse as Schumacher (Batman & Robin, The Phantom of the Opera), the material becomes something close to comedy gold. The interlopers inevitably unearth marital secrets long before they reach any loot, and as the Cage character’s wife, Kidman proves as distractingly classy to us as she is to the villains. But even subtext gets ground down by barely concealed plot mechanics. The house is a veritable paradise of security cameras and makeshift weapons—and if you don’t think that ostentatiously planted pile of cash will come into play later, Screenwriting 101 is just $89 at the Discovery Center.