Trespass - DVD

Movie: At first glance, the life that diamond dealer Kyle Miller (Nicholas Cage) leads with his wife Sarah (Nicole Kidman) and their daughter Avery (Liana Liberato) in his neat suburban mansion looks perfect. But the idyll is deceptive: the passion between the couple seems to have died out long ago, Sarah is bored to death in their luxury home and Avery begins to rebel more and more against her parents. But the family only gets into a real problem when masked gangsters break into their house and try to force Kyle to open his safe, in which they believe there are lots of valuable diamonds. But Kyle, knowing full well that he and his family will be dead once the intruders have what they want, refuses to comply. When Sarah then also recognizes in one of the men a young handyman who had recently worked in her house and was obviously interested in her, the situation threatens to escalate for good. But the fact that not only the motives of the intruders, but also Kyle's dangerous refusal have a very special reason, could exacerbate the long extremely.

Two prominent leads and a genre-savvy director are on hand in the home-theater premiere of Trespass. Why Joel Schumacher's (Falling Down, Don't Hang Up) film starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman still didn't make it to theaters is almost certainly due to several reasons. On the one hand, the actors, who are very good in themselves, don't deliver their best performances and sometimes act so overdone that it either seems extremely exhausting or unintentionally funny. But the real reason why the film falls short of its potential is that Joel Schumacher fails to bring new sides to the home invasion thriller subgenre. If you're familiar with films like 24 Hours of Fear with Kevin Bacon, The Strangers with Liv Tyler, or 24 Hours in His Grip with Anthony Hopkins, you'll see little that's surprising here. At times, it feels like Schumacher is sticking too rigidly to a set formula, focusing more on the characters' over-the-top nervous breakdowns rather than adding some more cleverness to the story.

Because with a touch more of that, Kyle's secret in particular could have made for some pretty great suspense moments. As it is, however, the story's potential for suspense is only marginally exploited. The only question is whether the film therefore deserves the harsh reviews it received in the US. Here the answer has to be clearly no. Because even if the whole thing comes rather poor in surprises and especially Nicholas Cage sells himself far below value, the thriller itself is not boring and in some scenes even really entertaining.

Joel Schumacher has made much better films in the course of his career as a director, that's probably beyond question. His last collaboration with Nicholas Cage, the revenge thriller 8mm , for instance, is undoubtedly one of his more accomplished works. But despite the rather uninspired directing and the story lacking in surprises, a clear entertainment value can be made out. So if you can do without high standards and like common home invasion thrillers, you can safely enjoy this home movie premiere.

Picture + Sound: The technical implementation of the thriller can definitely please. The picture convinces both in terms of cleanliness, as well as sharpness, although the action takes place mostly in the dark. The picture is kept in rather warm colors, which contrasts effectively with the action. The audio remains largely unspectacular, but some coherent sound effects provide the appropriate atmosphere. Good.

Extras: The DVD's bonus offerings consist primarily of promotional material. The 5min Making of is actually not much more than a slightly longer trailer and also the interviews with the actors and the director are on a rather superficial level. On top of that, there are a few minutes of uncommented footage from the making of the film, as well as the trailer for the film and other programming tips from the provider.

Conclusion: Trespass falls short of its potential, but then it doesn't really deserve the poor reviews the film has received in the US. Joel Schumacher has directed a solid thriller, which at times seems a bit too contrived and does not exactly show the prominent actors in top form, but which is never really boring and has some good moments of suspense to offer. Technically, the home theater premiere is well implemented, but the bonus material is a bit too superficial. If you like thriller entertainment without much pretension and without the very big surprises, you will be quite well served here.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp