Amazing...simply amazing.

Talk about reading into the movie...and script. Searching for something...that isn't fucking there.

Dude, c'mon, man.  How about it's just a terrible movie, based on a terrible, juvenile, no thought script?

IMO, there are literally hundreds of absolutely ridiculous things thrown in and going on in this 90 minute movie, meaning more than 1 every single minute.

DJS, I really don't know why you'd want to attempt to stick up for such a piece of steaming crap. I really don't get it.

Ad-libs usually occur when the written dialogue isn't working in certain places. It's done to make the dialogue better, not worse.  If this was heavily ad-libbed, can you even imagine what the script's actual dialogue must have looked and sounded like?  I'm talking about the script that got greenlit for a $35 Million budget.

Again, DJS, I'm just amazed by your comments.  You say flat out that it's a bad movie, but yet you try and read things in from 3 stadiums away, and apparently had no problem until the daughter returned home.  On the contrary, I knew, and I mean I literally "knew" the movie was going to really suck during Cage's phone conversation as he was driving his Carrera home, 2 minutes into the movie.  It went downhill from there and it continued to 1 up itself every minute or so.

Pure shit.  

Watching this right now and I'm 37 minutes in. I can totally see (at this point) why it got made. It has tension and conflict right off the bat. I'm not saying it's good, but garbage?  Not yet.

I ask you who trash this film and say the writer is to blame...do you have a script that is better and would receive more than 2.5 stars as a produced film as this one does on NF?

"Yes".

Tension?  Pia, are you serious?  For reals?

Yes...  

Okay, finished the movie. Was it great? No. Was it one of the worst I've ever seen? No.

Like I said earlier, I can totally see why it got made. Tension. Thrills. Twists. One location.....

You people who hated it and say it's complete garbage, what script of yours do you think would have been better if produced? I'm serious. Looking for a real discussion here. The reason is that I'm not the best writer here at ss, but for some reason producers/directors seem to like my stuff. What is it that writers see in films that those producer/directors don't agree on?  Just curious...

Watched this just because I was interested in the debate...never heard of it before this thread.

The first 20 minutes were OK. Standard genre stuff...dialogue a bit lame but not enough to throw me out. Decent pace, decent tension. Nic Cage's character has legs...neurotic and interesting.

Then it started unravelling quite dramatically.

Massive gaps in logic, overly complicated and convoluted plot.

The main problem with it was that it broke its own genre too much. The strength of this kind of thriller is the tension and claustrophobia...here there are flashbacks disrupting the tension and ultimately completely killing it.

The genre also relies on clear forces of antagonism...and the baddies in this unravel one by one till there is no fear level and thus no tension. Compare it to a more successful film in this vein...Panic Room. You had a similar thing going on with the antagonists, where one isn't that bad...but it always maintained the one true psycho to keep tensions up.

This film just seems to find itself with no where to go and everyone just starts shouting a lot and revealing increasingly bizarre back stories in dialogue.

I think the probem with the film stems from the fact they've started with a cliched premise and are straining very hard to try and make it fresh in some way by introducing twists and plot points...but they've stretched it beyond breaking point and lost what's good about this kind of film in the first place.

The fact that it's downright laughable at times doesn't help either.

"Your filthy lust invited them in!".

Pia, I think it's a bit off track to call out people who disliked the film and ask, "Can you do better?  And if so, prove it with a script, so we can deconstruct it."  Just doesn't make alot of sense and has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I'm shocked you found this to have "tension, thrills, and chills".  For me, like many, many others, I found it cringe-inducing and seriously  and literally laugh out loud funny and downright bad.  The "twists" and crazy revelations were both laughable and juvenile, and so poorly thought out.

Obviously to each his own, but IMO, this is 1 of the worst examples of a simple to write and execute premise, with a large budget and star power avaialble.

TBH, I think it's quite a difficult film to write.

That's one of the main problems with it, I think. I imagine the script has gone through several iterations trying to wean out a story from somewhere.

The idea of people breaking into a house to get into a safe isn't particularly strong. I'm not sure it's even got the legs for a short, let alone a feature.

There's really nowhere for the story to go organically...and this results in increasingly bizarre twists being dreamt up to get around the central problem.

I can see why they made it...the idea of people turning up pretending to be cops is a decent start...but there needed to be a more interesting reason for them to be there.

Alternatively, they could have told a different story that takes place elsehwere...a David Fincher type story about the gang and their different plots and reasons to be involved in the heist...including the guys attraction to the woman. Then the climax could have been the hostage situation rather than the premise.

You misunderstood me Jeff.  

I just meant that here we are at SS. We write screenplays. We call ourselves writers and here we are trashing this script. Can we do better than this? There must have been something about this script that all these pros liked. What is it?

And just to clarify, I did not think it was a great movie, just didn't think it was as bad as you made it out to be. Yellow Brick Road on the other hand was terrible IMO.

Quoted from Dreamscale Dude, c'mon, man.  How about it's just a terrible movie, based on a terrible, juvenile, no thought script? DJS, I really don't know why you'd want to attempt to stick up for such a piece of steaming crap. I really don't get it. Again, DJS, I'm just amazed by your comments.  You say flat out that it's a bad movie, but yet you try and read things in from 3 stadiums away, and apparently had no problem until the daughter returned home.  On the contrary, I knew, and I mean I literally "knew" the movie was going to really suck during Cage's phone conversation as he was driving his Carrera home, 2 minutes into the movie.  It went downhill from there and it continued to 1 up itself every minute or so. Pure shit.

Since Joel Schumacher is (overall) a seasoned director and the film was co-produced by Irvin Winkler (Rocky, Goodfellas, Shipping News, many others) I can't agree with you that everyone just picked up a medicore script. The script did attract  name actors for the leads (although to be fair, it may have had also to do with the talent behind the camera) ...that's why the film is also disappointing. You expect more, you expect better.

And I'm not reaching with my theory. I know a pickup shot when I see one.
The daughter going to the party/leaving party seems like a bizzare thread that doesn't have anything to do with the story. She could have stayed home and you'd get the same movie. The only logical explanation is that it was a leftover echo from a previous draft. I have no way of knowing if the previous drafts were better or worse. What I do know is that the script was bought and produced. The end result was a bad film.

Again, Jeff, I must repeat that I am blaming the writer  Karl Gajdusek - for if there were revisions he was a party to them (and he's still gettin' paid to doctor/polish other scripts, which wouldn't happen if he was that much of a hack) but I'm also blaming those who made the film itself.

This maybe a small cog in the problem machine of this movie, but...

Perhaps the origins of the script are part of the problem.
Trepass is heavily borrowing from a contained thriller, a low budget Spanish film.
Kidnapped's entire running length can be boiled down to 12 shots. *I think.*

Given that, I can see how throwing A-listers into a retread comes off this way.
It's an intense, closed in premise, delivered by A-Listers that chew up scenery.
That duality didn't exist in the Spanish film, which I like better.

Just an early morning thought.

E.D.

OK, you guys...you know I love a good back and forth discussion involving anything that has to do with writing and/or movies, so I'll continue playing along.

I want to address several of your comments in detail, but I also want to make a few general statements.

First of all, as far as I'm concerned, pretty much any topic/plot/story can be made into a good/solid script and movie.  It doesn't matter if it's a cliched been there seen that scenario or something brand spanking new.  It doesn't matter if it's simple or complex.  And it doesn't matter if it's cerebral and thought inducing, or cookie cutter leave your brain at the front door.

As I always say, "The devil is in the details", and I'll go to my grave believing in that 100%.

For instance, take a simple slasher scenario - we've all seen hundreds and hundreds of the exact same setup and story, yet some are good, some suck, some work, and some don't.  There's a simple reason why, and to me, it's very, very simple.

Same can be said for this scenario - the home invasion.  It's been done to death to varying degrees of success and failure, and again, for me, it's Kindergarten level simple to see why.

Pia and Rick - You both say you can see why this was picked up, and that in itself is quite shocking to me.  First of all, because this exact same premise has been done so many times already, but more importantly because the setup and execution is so hamfisted and ridiculous, and the details so completely implausible.

There's absolutely nothing here we haven't seen before done much, much better.  Why in God's name would anyone get even remotely excited at such a premise?  How could anyone involved with this not have seen immediately how poorly thought through this entire thing was?  I honestly don't get it.

Pia - You ask if "we" can do better than this script?  I'll answer this personally, not speaking for anyone else other than myself.  Can I write a better home invasion script, assuming I have a budget of over $25 Million and A or B level talent involved?  Hell yes!  Without a doubt.  For starters, I wouldn't make the obvious mistakes on display here, and even if everything else was exactly the same, if nothing else, my script would be believable, and by being believable, it would include the tension, thrills, and chills you somehow picked up with this stinkpot.

But, personally, I'd go much further than just that.  As Rick correctly pointed out, the structure here is just a frickin' mess the way the Flashbacks and back story are utilized.  The poor dialogue is also a killer here, and IMO, it's a simple fix.

I say it over and over and I'll most likely never stop - the initial setup in a script/movie is key to everything that follows, and the writer here started this race with a broken leg, and then dragged himself across the finish line with only stumps left where his legs once were.  This was dead in the water before Cage even said hello to Kidman.

DJS - You continually mention this side plot that you feel was left over from an earlier script version, involving the daughter, the kid she met at the party, and his father being the "kingpin" behind all this.  In your last post, you say that "you know a pickup shot when you see one", referring to the entire daughter leaving the house scenes, and that you're confident about this because it has to be, because if there wasn't some unknown/unseen rationale, the movie would be exactly the same whether or not she left in the fist place.

I don't agree at all.  The movie would not be even near the exact same movie and it would also be about 25 minutes shorter than its already short 90 minute padded runtime.

IMO, the reasons are quite clear, but the problems are really just a shockingly immature and juvenile way of setting up the finale the writer wanted, or thought he needed.  Check this out...

1)  If the daughter didn't sneak out, the entire movie (other than the Flashbacks) would have been confined to the house and yard.

2)  With the daughter there, the options and opportunities to play with are much more limited than having the opportunity for her character to become the savior or just another victim.  Also, with her not there, the Antags dealt with the Protags differently, meaning they could pad the film by having 2 completely different conflicts going on - when she was there and when she wasn't.

3)  After we find out there's no money in the safe, fake jewelry, and no diamonds, means the movie is basically over - unless there's another way to get something out of all this - and that's where this side plot comes in.  It's completely inane and absurd, but then again, so's everything in this script.  The daughter says, 'I know where you can get alot of money", and then we go into a series of absurd scenes in which the druggie/hooker girlfriend goes with the daughter to the party house to get this cash (can you even imagine how that would play out if the daughter actually took her there?  It would be comical, and would never work in a million years).  So, by doing this, our friend Karl, the brilliant writer, separates his Antags, and allows little Miss Daughter to take Druggie/Hooker out of the equation, and set up a save the day situation, with her unknown return.

OK, enough of that.  Let me end with this, and this refers back to my "Devil is in the details" philosophy.

Whether you buy into any of the Antag's actions or plans to make this go down or not, there are several very glaring and simple mistakes that no crooks would ever actually make, unless it had to be included to pad a 30 minute script into a 90 minute movie.

Showing up at the house, wearing those pathetic masks that didn't even conceal their identity is a fucking joke...absolutely ridiculous.  Having Cam Gigandet's character even there is also a frickin' laugher, but again, if he had to be there for some unknown reason, in no fucking way would he wear such an obvious disguise that shows his unique eyes.  This entire plot point is solely so the movie plays out the way it does and we get to see all those lovely Flashbacks and ridiculous back story.

Just moronic on an epic level.

As for it being picked up:

1. The Strangers was a surprise hit...so it makes sense they'd look for a similar story.

2. Kidnapped obvioulsy did well enough commercially that the studios were open to a remake of sorts. That film wasn't particularly well received either if Rotten Tomatoes is anything to go by.

3.The people who greenlight these projects aren't necessarily interested in how good the story is...but in the demographic and the relevance of the project to the market.

The story is the writers and Director's job...they are the ones responsible for that aspect of it. The Producers are responsible for getting the money and a decent cast etc.

Rick...The Strangers?  You're comparing this to The Strangers?

The Strangers is horror, marketed as horror, shot as horror, set up as horror.  The Strangers has zero twists and surprises.  It's appeal is in its terror and creep factor.

Apples and oranges in every way, IMO.

Well, if you're correct in your comment about "the people who greenlight these projects aren't necessarily interested in how good the story is...", at least that confirms what I was pretty sure I already knew - that these people are complete fucking idiots and every time a crappy movie loses a shitload of money, I for one will do a little jog and say, "Ain't that a surprise?".

So basically Jeff, what you're saying in a nutshell is, you loved that film and everyone should see it!?