Prime Time: The Trust (2016)

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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Prime Time: Route 666 (2001)

Between the late ‘90s and early 2000s, a lot of movies limped through to VHS as DVD was taking over as the main home entertainment format of choice. They were, to make an obvious point, basically the last of the straight to video titles that you might check out in the hope of occasionally finding a real gem. Those titles then started being released on DVD, and appeared on the shelves in your local supermarket, and now you can only really find them if you search through the weekly selection of films released directly to streaming platforms. It’s a lot harder to find the hidden treasure, but it is a lot easier to avoid the trash.

Route 666 is a 2001 film that I discovered on VHS when it was first released. Let’s just say that, well, it’s not a treasure.

Lou Diamond Phillips is Jack La Roca, an agent who is determined to track down a federal witness, who prefers to go by the name of Rabbit (Steven Williams), and transport him to where he needs to be by the next day. And that is why he and the team working under him (including characters played by Lori Petty and Dale Midkiff) end up taking a section of backroad that isn’t supposed to be used by travellers. It’s not long before some evil zombies appear, members of a chain gang who died on that road many years ago.

Director William Wesley, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Fivelson and Thomas Weber, takes a decent premise and sadly mishandles what could have been fun material. There’s a lot wrong here, but the biggest flaw is perhaps just the fact that this film was released in 2001. Despite the weak dialogue here, everything would have been more enjoyable if it had been made a decade or so previously, with everyone leaning harder into the cheesy lines and the practical effects given a chance to shine. It would have also given an aura of star power to Phillips that is missing here, because it now feels like he’s taken on this job while not being inundated with film offers.

Not that Phillips is terrible, but he isn’t great. He knows what he is working with, but he doesn’t ever quite find the right approach to it. Neither do many of the other cast members, including Petty. Midkiff knows what he’s doing, and has fun in his role, and Williams does his best in a role that allows him to steal pretty much every scene he’s in. The other cast member worth mentioning is L. Q. Jones as a Sheriff who may know exactly why people shouldn’t be driving along “route 666”.

But everybody suffers from the choices made in the presentation, from the disappointing lack of good gore gags (and the opportunities were there for some great moments) to the choppy editing and slow-motion used every time the deadly zombies make their entrance. The connections between certain characters are laughable, the “rules” that limit the actions of the zombies aren’t utilised well, and Wesley constantly fails to get just the right tone. 

But this was a rewatch, and I cannot promise I won’t ever watch it again. More because of the memories I have of checking it out on VHS back when it was first released than the quality of the film itself.

4/10

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