The Trust review: Nicolas Cage gets wacky in pitch-black heist comedy
Nicolas Cage could very well become the next celebrity target of US police unions for his involvement in The Trust, a slickly executed dark comedy that sees the Oscar-winner play one of the most corrupt cops to grace the screen in recent memory. The feature directorial debut from music video directors Ben and Alex Brewer (they won an MTV Video Music Award for Justin Bieber’s Where Are U Now), sees the actor return to the desert terrain of the film that netted him an Oscar, Leaving Las Vegas, to embody a man so giddily demented only Cage could play him. Cage is Jim Stone, a thickly mustached and bored police officer working in the evidence room of the Las Vegas Police Department. He maintains a friendly work rapport with David Waters (Elijah Wood), his equally as passive colleague, who’s reeling from a recent breakup with his wife. When Stone discovers an unusually high bail receipt in connection to a recent drug bust the pair witnessed, he begins to hatch a plan to find the source of the money, enlisting Waters to act as his partner. Waters, following some persuading, hops on board, and together, after doing some sleuthing, the duo hatch a plan to rob a vault built into the freezer of a small grocery store. Of course matters go awry from the get-go.
The set-up is familiar by caper standards (Ocean’s Eleven on a lower budget, where the cops are robbers) - what sets it apart is Cage’s brazenly bizarre performance. It’s hard to gauge how much of Stone’s strange behavior was written into Ben Brewer and Adam Hirsch concise screenplay, and how much was cooked up by Cage on set. When Stone first meets with Waters at a neon-lit margarita bar to reel his colleague in, Stone for no apparent reason orders Waters to eat a lemon drenched in tabasco, while gently massaging his partner’s back. Later, as Waters unveils an elaborate grid detailing their heist, Stone uses the time to apply a thick swath sunscreen to his nose. Waters looks on, visibly perplexed. As the film grows increasingly dark following violent hiccups in their attempted robbery, so does Cage: Stone’s odd tics suddenly turn sinister. Simply put, he’s a blast to watch. Cage is the rare actor who has the ability to make you laugh one moment, and recoil the next. Not to be outdone, Wood holds his own opposite Cage, grounding the proceedings as an increasingly embittered everyman way in over his head. The Trust opens 14 April via DIRECTV, and 13 May in theaters and VOD.