It
is Rififi Vegas-style, which means
more of everything, particularly nihilistic excess. Two CSI cops of varying
degrees of corruption have discovered a suspiciously fortified vault—the kind whose
owners are unlikely to report a burglary to the police. Of course cracking that
safe will be a difficult proposition, but Sergeant Waters and Lt. Stone are
just bored and bent enough to come up with a plan in Alex & Ben Brewer’s The Trust (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
Let’s
not beat around the bush. This is a Nic Cage movie, but believe it or not, its
pretty good, just like the under-rated Pay the Ghost (seriously, that one really was under-rated). Cage definitely
does his thing, but the Brewer Brothers give him the right vehicle for those oddball
Cage-isms.
Cage
is Lt. Jim Stone, a world-weary forensics whiz. Elijah Wood is Sgt. David
Waters, his stoner best friend in the department. Together, they are mired in
indolence and petty corruption. As part of some routine paperwork, Stone
discovers a suspiciously large cash trail emanating from a small-time drug
dealer. Taking some time-off, Stone goes undercover at the same hotel where
said dealer works, ironically having a surprisingly good time with the rest of
the banquet staff and earning good tips. However, when he traces the dealer’s
cash drops to an unprepossessing corner store with Fort Knox in the backroom,
Stone starts thinking capery.
Like
the thieves in Rififi, they will come
down through the roof, but they are dealing with a far more sophisticated safe.
There is also the woman they were not expecting to find in the apartment above.
Waters is more than a little uncomfortable assuming the role of hostage-taker,
but it doesn’t seem to faze Stone. In fact, he seems to roll with each twist
and turn quite easily.
The
Brewers turn Cage loose in scenes that are suited to his full throttle approach,
but they also manage to contain him when it is appropriate. Conversely, Wood is
always inclined towards more restrained nebbish neuroses, which fit the film’s
dramatic context rather well. They play off each other quite nicely, which is
fortunate, since they are together for about ninety percent of the time.
However, Jerry Lewis (so rarely seen in film these days) is entirely wasted as
Stone’s dementia-suffering ex-cop father, in what amounts to a few throwaway lines.
