Part dark comedy, part crime thriller, The Trust is a very odd film that deserves to be seen by more people. The fact that it gives another starring role to Nicolas Cage may have put some people off, this was released before his latest renaissance (although *cough* some people have always enjoyed Cage onscreen, no matter the majority opinion), and maybe the fact that it's a hard film to pin down, tonally.
Cage plays Stone, a cop who comes up with what he thinks is a great plan to deliver a huge payday for himself and Waters, a friend and colleague (played by Elijah Wood). Stone has figured out the location of what could very well be an overflowing safe, one that has been filled up with profits from criminal activity. If Stone and Waters can break into it then it's a win-win, because they end up rich and the only immediate victims are the crooks. But it doesn't take long for things to start going . . . a bit wrong.
Directed by Alex and Benjamin Brewer, the latter also having co-written the script with Adam Hirsch, The Trust is an enjoyably slippery film, moving from something close to a buddy cop film to a riff on the “heist gone wrong” movie. The central characters are easy to like, even as circumstances start to push them to act more unpleasantly, and the third act is an enjoyable storm of bad luck and confusion.
Cage and Wood are both very enjoyable in the lead roles. Cage plays his character in a very controlled, and slowly deliberate, manner. Wood, on the other hand, is a bit more antsy, and his character is really only willing to go along with everything if he can keep convincing himself that it is risk-free. There are a few other supporting cast members, including Sky Ferreira, Ethan Suplee, Steven Williams, and Jerry Lewis (given a cameo that pops up at just the right time to remind viewers to keep paying attention).
Although everything is well put together, the easy rapport between Cage and Wood is the main reason to watch this, and your opinion of the film will depend on how you feel about the two stars. They are bad cops, but good bad cops, if you know what I mean, and it is fun to see them put more energy and effort into their plans for robbery than they put into their standard workdays. There’s also a very enjoyable score from Reza Safinia, which I have to mention here because of the feeling I had that I’d heard it elsewhere (it turns out that parts of it were reminding me of the remix of “Radioactivity” by Fatboy Slim).
Maybe a difficult one to recommend, the comedy is very dark and the crime/thriller side of things is played lightly in between sudden bursts of violence, but I will recommend it anyway. It’s good to watch something occasionally that is quite hard to place neatly in any pigeonhole.
7/10
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