From: sbb@panix.com (The Phantom)
Subject: REVIEW: TRESPASS
Reply-To: sbb@panix.com (The Phantom)
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 15:14:38 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01654
Keywords: author=Phantom

			      TRESPASS
		    A review in the public domain
			    by The Phantom
			   (sbb@panix.com)

     Walter Hill has been responsible for much of what's right -- and
much of what's wrong -- with contemporary action films.  He made his
name with the classic late Seventies exploitation film, THE WARRIORS
(the film that first got theater owners worried about more than just
spilled Coke and gum stuck under the seats), then went on to direct the
somewhat more complex and rewarding films THE LONG RIDERS and SOUTHERN
COMFORT, finally gaining mainstream attention and widespread praise for
his taut and perceptive handling of the film that made Eddie Murphy the
biggest box office draw of the eighties: 48 HRS.

     Since those glory days of the late seventies and early eighties,
however, Hill's contribution to the world of the high quality action
film have been rather substantially diluted by an unbroken string of
cinematic dogs, ranging from STREETS OF FIRE, to BREWSTER'S MILLIONS,
JOHNNY HANDSOME, and RED HEAT, and culminating with the toxically bad
ANOTHER 48 HRS., a film that to this day haunts the Phantom's worst
nightmares.  Phans may be forgiven if they find that they cannot even
remember these titles, let alone if they only vaguely remember seeing
them on cable during what otherwise might have been sleepless nights; at
this point, it's only the studio executives and theater owners who
remember them all too well.  (Think this past summer's box office was a
tad disappointing?  Consider the remarkable summer of 1990, just two
years ago, which gave theater owners the choice of showing ANOTHER 48
HRS., ROBOCOP 2, or simply closing down for a few weeks to cut their
losses and save on their electric bills.)

     Yet Hill does have a certain flair for this genre, if only because
of his ability to take a script that's somewhat sub-par and rather rough
around the edges and finish it with a high visual gloss; whatever his
failings as a director -- perhaps nothing worse than signing on with
sure-to-be-doomed projects like ANOTHER 48 HRS.  -- he is able to give
whatever film he is directing the full Hollywood treatment, complete
with a myriad of odd camera angles, lovingly photographed, slow-motion
death scenes, and an obvious love for the genre.  Certainly there have
been other directors who have done worse with far better material.  And
while this isn't exactly lavish praise, neither is it intended to be a
backhanded compliment -- in the Phantom's opinion, all Hill has to do is
get back to his roots and he'll once again be able to make the kind of
pictures that start riots at the multiplex.

     Until then, however, we have TRESPASS, Hill's latest directorial
effort.  And while not a bad film by any means, neither is it the kind
of film that gets people stirred up -- something for which all
action/exploitation films should strive, even if they do so through the
use of shape-shifting killer robots from the future rather than warring
inner-city gangs.  Although TRESPASS is an entirely competent
undertaking, it also seems a little unfocused and fuzzy around the
edges; at times it even seems a tad schizophrenic.  As a result, Hill
has to do all he can just to keep our attention, let alone get us as
involved in the film as we were well over a decade ago when we first met
up with THE WARRIORS.

     The schizophrenia seems a conceptual problem more than one of
execution, for it seems to the Phantom that even back at its
high-concept birth, no one was quite sure how to play this film -- much
of the time it's difficult to tell whether Hill and writers Bob Gale and
Robert Zemeckis intended TRESPASS to be a remake of John Carpenter's
formative "under siege" film ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (itself a homage to
Howard Hawk's classic western RIO BRAVO) or a spin-off of the
quintessential black exploitation film of the nineties, NEW JACK CITY.
As a result, it's a little of both and not enough of either -- it has
neither the intense, gripping suspense of Carpenter's low-budget
classic, nor the no-holds-barred gangster ethic of the film that once
again brought riots back to our neighborhood cinemas.

     The plot is so simple as to make one appreciate the nuances of
BASIC INSTINCT: two Arkansas firemen (Bill Paxton and William Sadler)
come across a treasure map that points the way to a stash of stolen
religious artifacts in an abandoned warehouse in East St.  Louis.
Coincidentally, this very abandoned warehouse was chosen by Ice-T as an
ideal place to kill one of his disloyal henchmen.  What a coincidence!
The Phantom certainly would never have expected such a thing to happen
(except by purest coincidence), so you can imagine how overjoyed he was
to find that he hadn't spent his $7.50 in vain.  But wait!  After this,
more stuff happens!  Now get this -- you'll never believe it: as it
happens (and purely by chance) our two very white firemen bumble into
the middle of the execution and get both Ice-T, Ice Cube, and all their
very black cronies more than a little miffed at them -- especially after
they take Ice-T's brother hostage.  Thus is the stage set for great
drama and tragedy, just as the Bard might have done it several hundred
years ago.

     Once our brave firemen (one good white guy and one bad white guy;
the Phantom will let you find out for yourself how many good black guys
and bad black guys there are) barricade themselves in the warehouse the
film more or less starts to fall apart.  The problem is that neither
Paxton nor Sadler are very interesting; and neither is particularly
charismatic.  Yet here they are, the ostensible focus of the film, and
forced to deal with the kind of situation that causes most actors to
break out in a cold sweat: the terror of knowing that you must play an
underwritten and somewhat bland character while all around you better
and more charismatic actors distract the director and do everything they
possibly can to keep the audience entertained.

     Also not helping the proceedings very much is the film's strange
case of BODYGUARD-itis, in which a situation with very strong and
obvious racial overtones is simply ignored by the filmmakers.  In the
case of the interracial Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston romance this may
be understandable, since drawing attention to it would be somewhat akin
to exploring the differences between Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip; but
in TRESPASS a potential means to get the audience up and throwing things
at the screen is simply ignored, with the result that everyone in the
cast seems curiously restrained most of the time, as if they'd all been
given a couple of doses of Prozac before the cameras started rolling.
(It seems especially odd to the Phantom -- given the subsequent casting
decisions -- that Gale and Zemeckis included absolutely no racial
epithets in the script; the bad guys are, after all, known for their
racially charged music, and if one is going to cast the authors of "Cop
Killer" and "Black Korea" in a film, one should at least go to the
trouble of giving them something familiar and comforting to say every
now and then.  That Paxton and Sadler have no business in this film in
the first place -- that they were obviously cast in order to lure more
white people to the film and keep it from becoming a warmed over NEW
JACK CITY clone that might earn at most half of NEW JACK CITY's box
office -- is a subject that the Phantom will avoid discussing here.  In
any event, the lack of such in a film made in 1992 serves to do little
but make it seem even more far-fetched and unrealistic than it already
is -- and TRESPASS is hardly well-grounded enough to be able to shoulder
the burden of also seeming like some sort of bizarre urban fairy tale in
which the warehouse walls are all that separate the good white guys from
the bad black guys.)

     What happens once Paxton and Sadler find the loot -- and the bad
guys find out about it, too -- is best left to the paltry imaginations
of writers Gale and Zemeckis; suffice it to say that lots of shell
casings bounce off concrete, visually quite stunning fires break out,
and the all-important Hayes code is observed.  There are few surprises
here other than the film's running length, which for some reason is much
closer to the two-hour mark than it needs to be.  DIE HARD this is not.
(And in this season of bloated running times, the Phantom feels bound to
point out that 48 HRS.  was a mere 97 minutes long, proving once again
that when one has little to say, one is usually best off taking only a
little time in which to say it.)

     Though TRESPASS is a competent action film, it is one that is
curiously insubstantial given its premise.  It's a film that needed some
more charisma at its core (think of how much better the film would have
been had either Paxton or Sadler -- which is which the Phantom is not
sure -- been replaced by Ice Cube, allowing for a powerful, head-to-head
confrontation between him and Ice-T instead of the muted and unaffecting
one that ultimately develops between Ice-T and both of the miscast
principals), and a better focus than that for which its high-concept
origins apparently allowed.  Too, it might have helped to have released
TRESPASS *before* either RESERVOIR DOGS or BAD LIEUTENANT, for then
there wouldn't be such ample reminders of what a good director can do
given a well-crafted story, a literate script, and a surfeit of good
acting.  Hill may not be in the same class as Tarantino (whose
low-budget cult classic RESERVOIR DOGS is fast becoming the DELIVERANCE
of the nineties), but he's a talented director who needs better support
than Gale and Zemeckis -- both clearly out of their element here -- and
the second-guessers at the studio have given him.

     The only reason to see TRESPASS is because it's the only action
film out this Christmas; consider, however, the number of very good
independent films currently in release (including the aforementioned
RESERVOIR DOGS and BAD LIEUTENANT, GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, and THE CRYING
GAME among them) and whether your $7.50 would be better spent on any of
these fine, well-crafted films, rather than on a by-the-numbers action
film of a kind that we've all seen before -- and likely will all see
again before too long.

: The Phantom
: sbb@panix.com
: cmcl2!panix!sbb

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews