Trespass’ a barking mad B-movie Nicole Kidman

Nicolas Cage does a whole new brand of crazy in the psychological crime thriller Trespass: crazy like a fox.He and Nicole Kidman star as a married couple held hostage during a home invasion, and by the time Cage is finished messing with the villains' minds, everyone is barking mad. It's kind of fun to watch.Trespass is a brisk, bracing B-movie that turned up at TIFF in September. The movie opens with Cage's character, Kyle, driving home to his upscale house in his expensive car, all the while talking business on his cell phone. It's obvious from his conversation that he has money problems of one sort or another, and sure enough, you soon see him opening a safe in the house and frowning at the contents.Kyle and his wife, Sarah (Kidman) seem to have tension in their relationship. Their teenage daughter Avery (Liana Liberto) wants to go to a party, and when Mom and Dad say no, she quietly skips out of the place while their backs are turned. Thus far you've got money problems, marital issues and a rebellious teen in the house, so there's already a general sense of unease to the story.Then the bad guys come to the door.Trespass is an account of the dance between Kyle and the men who have come to rob his family. They make demands; he refuses to comply. It's an interesting stand-off, and the tension is initially terrific. Slowly but surely, flaws appear in the crime plan. One of the home invaders has a drug thing going on, one is mentally unstable, another is under tremendous pressure to pay a drug debt. (Among the baddies are Cam Gigandet and Animal Kingdom's Ben Mendelsohn.)As the story unfolds, there are enough hints of betrayal and double-dealing on all sides to keep things interesting, or at least as interesting as things can be when you're dealing with criminals who just can't stop talking. Yes, this band of robbers is the chatty type, falling all over each other in disarray and always discussing what they did, why they did it and what they might do next. Despite their weapons, they seem to be planning to chat Kyle's family to death.Kyle keeps things further off-kilter by negotiating all the time with the bad guys. His bravado infuriates them. The result is a lot of yelling, running around, pistol whipping and so forth. The film is fairly typical of the genre.Is any review complete without a discussion of the performances? Let's hope so. And that's probably enough about Trespass, a film created with one deathless phrase in mind: Extra cheese.This film will be available on DVDbythebeginningofNovember.liz.braun@sunmedia.ca