Trespass
Director Joel Schumacher's home-invasion drama stars two Oscar winners, Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. So how bad could it be? Extremely. Signing up for a screenplay like this was an unfathomable choice, at least for Kidman. (Let's face it, the Cage rule is to make at least four bad films for every good one.) "I just feel like there had to have been Soviet blackmailers involved," my local video-store clerk said as he handed over the DVD of Trespass, released less than a month after its video-on-demand/theatrical rollout. Kidman is the neglected wife, Cage a diamond broker who secretly mortgaged their home to the hilt. Her performance is wan and his is cold, even when they're clinging together on the floor, awaiting death. The home invaders are familiar types: a hunk, a jittery stripper and a slavering muscleman whose principal duty is to up the rape-fear factor. It's all titillation, though; these yahoos aren't remotely scary. I never thought I'd say this, but here is a movie that made me look back fondly on both versions of Michael Haneke's Funny Games, in which at least the brutality was honest and the threats vivid.