Les pilleurs

Trespass is an action movie. No doubt about it. But to judge it accordingly would be a mistake. Walter Hill, one of the best action directors ever, is at the helm of this movie, which automatically makes it worth a look.

The movie concerns a couple of hick fire fighters (Bill Paxton and Bill Sadler, in great roles): one a classic hick, the other a borderline psycho, chasing treasure in the ghetto. They eventually cross paths with some big-time G's (gangsters) led by Ice-T and Ice Cube.

The story still sounds familiar, and for Hill it is a return to certain familiar territory. Like many of his pictures the movie centers around machismo and male posturing, but not since Hill's 48HRS had he done a film that contained some subtle social commentary on race relations, and paranoid stereotyping. There are fierce gun battles as expected, and the story is never boring. "Die Hard in the Ghetto" , may have been an equally suitable title.

The movie is tense , funny and great, and sadly, was ignored at the box-office during its' Christmas 1992 release. Fortunately, it has been immortalized on home video and DVD.

Wow. It's been said that Walter Hill is a masterful action director and this does rank as one of his best films. Working from an air tight script by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, he sure does make it all work.

Here we have the story of a couple of Arkansas firemen who stumble across a map to...you guessed it, buried treasure. They load up their Bronco and take a little road trip up to East St.Louis to grab the loot. In a rundown building, where the treasure is supposedly hidden, they find a little more than they bargained for and things pretty much go downhill from there. It's now a battle of wits and bullets. It rocks.

Bill Paxton, I think, is one of today's best actors and he does his thing well here as the naive Arkansas boy. William Sadler also does his thing as the likeable, hot-headed psychopath and Ice T pretty much plays Ice T. The action is fast and the absurdity of the whole thing will keep you glued to your sets.

I saw this film recently on cable and found myself more intrigued by it than I thought I would be. I hadn't heard anything about this movie so I really didn't know what to expect. It ended up being much better than I expected and, while not a great film, it is certainly one I wouldn't mind watching again. I recognized the elements of "Treasure of Sierra Madre" without having any information about the film. I've since learned that it was indeed echoing Huston's film.

I had no problem with the actors and actually found some of the conflicts on both sides interesting. Even some of the "bad guys" were struggling to deal with decisions they didn't necessarily agree with. I didn't really see the characters as all bad or all good. Each had their own demons that they brought with them and they were all susceptible to the lure of gold.

It seems that it is impossible to have a movie that is completely action orientated, yet be highly intelligent.But Trespass has done this very well. It puts together a group of characters in a difficult situation with which you get to see them react to their circumstances in a fresh and realistic way.

I was very impressed with Ice-T who gave an extremely convincing performance as the leader of the criminals.

This film is excellent and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who would like to see an action movie done right!

Another stylish movie from Walter Hill since Streets of Fire.

The interesting part is, none of the characters are good. So it's truly a story about wrong guys in a wrong place and a wrong destiny and luck.

Maybe the story gets dry in the middle, but if you enjoy Walter's style, you'll end up buying a copy of this movie and watch it whenever you need some stylish booze... Like me.