Trespass (2011)
For the first half of Trespass, a routine though not uninteresting abduction/heist thriller, I was entertained enough. True, there's nothing even the slightest bit original here, but it worked. But, then, it all fell apart.
Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman are a wealthy, unhappily married couple who, along with their bratty teenage daughter, Liana Liberato, are held captive in their home by a quartet of thugs who are out to rob them of diamonds and/or cash. Things do not go according to plan, naturally, so it becomes a battle of wills with both sides trying to gain the upper-hand.
Unfortunately, it's around the half-way point when it becomes pretty clear that the screenplay will do anything and everything to draw this story out regardless of such things as logic, motivation or rationality. Also, once all of the characters' back stories are filled in, there appears to be no real reason for the events in the movie to have happened at all.
Trespass must set some kind of record for having the heroes getting the advantage, only to do or not do the obvious thing to essentially end the whole affair. Countless times Kidman, Cage or Librato have the gun or knife or hypodermic needle and can kill one of the baddies and they just...don't. The motivations behind the decisions of the characters also raise more questions than they answer. In one instance, a safe is opened, and when it's revealed there's nothing inside, one of the villains helpfully comments "If you had told us it was empty, we'd have been out of here a long time ago." Another annoying distraction is the villain played by Cam Gigandet who worked on the family's security system and has a pretty juvenile case of puppy-love for Kidman, so he constantly throws himself between her and the gun trained on her or beats the tar out of his cohorts for even threatening her harm.
So, what you expect to happen, happens. The villains end up turning on each other and Cage proves his worth as a husband and father by defending his family from being injured in the process. The good guys win, the bad guys lose and everything marches along to the formulaic drumbeat, barely pausing to ask any questions. Why Kidman signed on to Trespass is the biggest mystery; it's like one those throw-away movies she would've done during the Tom Cruise years. As far as Cage is concerned (and with this, Seeking Justice, Season of the Witch and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance released all in one year), it's just more of the same.