The Trust [2016] is the debut of directorial duo Alex and Benjamin Brewer starring the debut of an onscreen duo consisting of Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood as cops who uncover a mysterious bank vault after a drug investigation.
Perfect Partners. Cage and Wood have a great energy about themselves on their own, but they have some surprisingly fun chemistry between the two of them. It’s really what makes the film worth watching if nothing else, the dynamic of both of these characters bouncing off of one another. And not just the dynamic of the characters themselves, but the fact that one of those characters is played by Nicolas Cage which is kind of just a magical thing in and of itself. I would watch these two in plenty of other projects together, preferably ones with tighter scripts.
Loose Attention. The downfall of the film, and it’s really not a bad film by any means, is the script is severely lacking. This is a “background movie” which by I mean one that you can easily throw on while you’re doing any other number of things. It’s a movie that you’ll throw on in the background while cleaning the house and take away just as much as if you were paying acute attention. There’s just not enough happening to really, truly engage. All of the right elements are there, but they just don’t play out quite right. It’s not boring, but it’s not exciting. When you come out in the middle you’ve got something disinteresting, which I would argue is much worse
Trustworthy. As a first feature, there’s really no big notes that the directors need to take away as far as their production quality is concerned. They know how to shoot and light, they are able to put together a solid cast, they just need to have better material. Considering that one of the directors co-wrote the script means his strength is obviously weighted in one direction, but the bones of the script are really solid to start, it could just use some love. I’ve seen first-time writers/directors come off far worse.
Great sparks between its two leads can’t light enough of a fire to make this caper more than just slightly engaging.
