PLOT: Two bored Las Vegas cops (Nicolas Cage & Elijah Wood) think they can score some easy cash when a drug dealer installs a sophisticated safe in one of his cover businesses. Little do they know exactly what the safe contains and who it�s connected to.
REVIEW: Say what you will about Nicolas Cage, but despite the many (many) films he takes-on nowadays, he can usually be relied upon to give a solid performance. Cage only really phones it in for sure-fire duds like LEFT BEHIND (the nadir of his screen career) and when given a shot at something that�s a cut above his average fare, he goes for broke.
THE TRUST is one of those better-than-expected Cage vehicles. From directing duo Alex and Ben Brewer, this is a quick, breezy dirty cop caper that, while not particularly original, offers Cage some prime scenery to chew. Clearly the directors know how to use their leading man, and Cage seems to be having a ball as a middle-aged cop saddled with a sick dad (Jerry Lewis � playing it straight in a cameo) and a boss whose idea of good police work is sending his lackeys to check out confiscated auction goods he wants to buy. Sporting a trademark cop stache', Cage plays his character as slightly loopy from the start, munching down on lemons doused with Tabasco, and playing weird, frat boy pranks on his young friend, a slacker cop played by Elijah Wood.
While Cage is so actively milking the material for all it's worth; Wood has the somewhat thankless job of playing the straight-man. It's a change of pace for Wood, who doesn't typically play cops, but Wood's got a solid craft going and never tries to play it too tough. Rather, he just plays him as incredibly bored with the job he hates, until shocked into some kind of mild action once Cage's character starts to go off-the-rails during the heist.
Strangely for this kind of thing, the first half of the movie, which is more character-driven and devoted to planning the heist, is far superior to the more action-driven second half. It's not that the Brewers haven't done a good job making a tight, confined little two-hander (with only Sky Ferreira as an unlucky hostage sharing the screen with them in the last half of the film), but once Cage starts acting crazy and Wood starts to snap out of slacker mode, it becomes a little more run-of-the-mill. There are still some interesting digressions here, but the first half is where everyone seems to be having the most fun � being a kind of police satire rather than the full-on thriller it becomes.
Despite the unevenness, THE TRUST is far superior to most VOD movies out there, something driven home by the fact that it had its premiere at SXSW. It's a modest film but a well-crafted one with some good production design (the safe much of the second half takes place in looks really cool). If nothing else, THE TRUST proves Cage is as engaged as he ever was and seems ripe for a comeback. Someone needs to get on that.
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Sgt. David Waters who works for Lt. Jim Stone are not corrupt on the job but they are both sick of their work. Jim is forced to run personal errands for his captain while his idea for new equipment to better his team is brushed off. David sneaks in late to a crime scene, plays with the evidence then laughs it off when a crook escapes from the scene. They both hate their mundane jobs filing paperwork and stacking evidence. But when the bail out of a drug dealer raises a red flag about where a large amount of cash comes from, the two friends investigate. They go undercover, gather information and follow tails. When they see an opportunity to get in on the money, they devise a plan to rob a vault they find hidden behind a grocery store that serves as a front.
This is the basic premise of "The Trust." It's a two man gig that's not flashy or elaborate with glitzy high speed car chases or massive shoot-outs despite being set in Las Vegas. Think of it as a much scaled down version of The Italian Job. David and Jim are planning their heist by the seat of their pants and it seems doable to them for their first time out. They don't assemble techy gadgets to bust the vault except for a high powered drill press. But when executing their heist, things go wrong and they work their way through the mishaps and situations the best they know how - sometimes with success, sometimes not. They don't exactly pretend to know what they're doing and this is what I liked most about the movie. Well, besides the harmony between Elijah Wood and Nicolas Cage.
Jim played by Cage is pure Nic, mostly. There's inklings of the madman he's known to portray. He's completely off kilter but he's not the full blown wacko. Jim is a huge risk taker without thinking of the consequences they can bring. He's a shoot first and never ask questions type of guy. Nic is all out, giving it his all and in your face so you know his character's mindset right off the bat.
David on the other hand is the opposite and portrayed well by Wood. We've seen him get riled up with other characters he's played and he does it with conviction here and he brings some ethics to David. It's not until he's intentionally doing wrong on the force that he realizes just how corrupt the police can be. Elijah's performance is much more subtle than Nic's. It may not be apparent at first but you do get the crux that David knows they've gone too far and Elijah is great at conveying his character's internal conflict.
Jim and David's opposite poles is very intriguing. When Jim ditches a pre-robbery responsibility the two worked out, David blows up at him by arguing that the implications of Jim's slacking is dangerous. Soon Jim jokingly reveals he did what he was supposed to do and David is left rattled and pissed off that Jim is taking the heist too lightly. But throughout the movie the two joke, conspire and quarrel and it's great seeing that type of chemistry between them.
The music chosen for the film has a cool 1970s vibe especially the opening and closing song. At times the lack of background music in certain scenes effectively created more tension. This is also true in the long stills that were filmed. When the camera stayed fixed on someone and it was quiet, some deep thinking going on with the characters. This made for good suspense during the heist which takes up most of the second part of the film. A very tense point gave a knee-jerk reaction which was the result of being shocked from other movies that spring surprises on the viewer. As they get deeper into breaking into the safe, circumstances causes David to feel it's not worth it. At the end of it all the old saying is appropriate. Crime doesn't pay.
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Leave it to the sometimes great and sometimes terrible and almost always fascinating Nicolas Cage to somehow put a fresh spin on a simple, one-word response. At one point in "The Trust," the young cop played by Elijah Wood is flummoxed by yet another surprise sprung on him by the older cop played by Nicolas Cage.
"What is THIS?" demands Wood.
And Cage responds with verbal combo platter that's a combination of "Huh?" and "What?" It sounds something like "Whuuuh?" and I know, you kinda had to be there - but just picture Nicolas Cage sporting yet another amazing Nicolas Cage mustache, his eyes darting about as he realizes he's caught red-handed and he blurts out, "Whuuuh?"
I'm not sure any other actor could do so much with a single syllable. Cage is somehow understated AND over the top in "The Trust," a dark and nasty and flat-out funny heist movie about two Las Vegas cops who risk everything for One Big Score and find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a seemingly hopeless, blood-soaked quagmire.
Oh and by the way: Jerry Lewis plays Cage's father.
JERRY. LEWIS.
Oh and also: This film is directed by Ben and Alex Brewer, who won an MTV Video Music Award for Jack U�s "Where Are U Now?" and show real potential in their feature debut. I mean it.
Apparently it's Cinematic Law for Nicolas Cage to be in a film every few months (this is the first of six Cage appearances scheduled for 2016) and sometimes Cage appears to be acting with one eye on the paycheck and the other on the EXIT sign, but he throws himself into the role of Stone, a supervisor in the evidence room of the Las Vegas Police Department.
Stone discovers there's a huge underground vault adjacent to a grocery store and beneath an apartment building and the vault most likely contains millions upon millions of criminally begat money. It takes some doing, but Stone is eventually able to convince a young cop named Waters (Elijah Wood) to partner up with him on a risky and just plain insane mission to break into the seemingly impenetrable vault and skip the country before anyone realizes they're the culprits.
"I'll do it because I have nothing better to do and I despise my job," says Waters, who's still reeling from a broken marriage and seems perpetually depressed.
"You're a positive thinker and I respect you," says Stone, who then adds: "And I f*cking dig you."
The 90-year-old Lewis is effective in a straight dramatic role consisting of only a few quick and quiet scenes with Cage. I'll admit it, I wanted more Jerry Lewis.
Singer/songwriter/model/actress/social media force Sky Ferreira, who probably never dreamed of being in the same movie as the star of "Cinderfella" (alas, they have no scenes together) is a standout as a feisty woman taken prisoner by the cops when she happens to be in the apartment from which they're literally going to drill down into the vault. (Just before they commence boring through the floor, Stone cracks to Waters, "You know the drill! HA!")
Most of the second half of "The Trust" is an extended sequence inside that apartment, as the heist becomes increasingly complicated and yields more than one major surprise. The directors keep the action humming along with some stylish visuals and some nifty musical choices, from compositions by Darian Zahedi of the L.A. duo the Reflections to selections by Wagner and Chopin.
Wood and Cage have a terrific dynamic together. At first Waters seems to look up to Stone as a father figure, and that clouds his perceptions. It takes Waters a long time to realize what should have been obvious from the get-go: Stone is a sociopath who will blow someone's head off even when there might be an easier way to solve things.
The mustache and the "Whuuuh?" should have tipped him off something wasn't quite right with this guy.
