Trespass (1992)

September 9, 2024 12:19 PM

Two Arkansas firemen, Vince and Don, get hold of a map that leads to a cache of stolen gold in an abandoned factory in East St. Louis. What they don't know is that the factory is on the turf of a local gang, who come by to execute one of their enemies. Vince sees the shooting, the gang spots Vince, and extended mayhem ensues. As Vince and Don try to escape, gang leader King James argues with his subordinate Savon about how to get rid of the trespassers.

Stars Bill Paxton, Ice T, William Sadler, and Ice Cube; directed by Walter Hill. Originally titled Looters, but the name was changed after the 1992 LA Riots; other potential titles included "Point of No Return", "The Intruders", "Burning Gold", "Greed", "Fire Trap" and "Blood and Gold".

(I decided to post this after seeing the recent post about Judgment Night; even though I saw this in the theater, I too initially confused this movie with Judgment Night.)

The theme song by Ices T and Cube; includes bits from the movie.

posted by Halloween Jack (3 comments total)

I introduced my wife to this recently. We did a double feature with Surviving The Game, another early Ice T role. It held up pretty well. Performances are also better than they need to be for this sort of genre flick. The real abandoned warehouse is amazing and almost a character itself. (It's condos now!) Action and pacing is compelling zippy. It helps that's it's a pretty bare-bones plot and is essentially a siege movie. One party wants in, and the other wants to stop them, but also find a safe exit.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but I really like the title, as it points out that the two white firefighters are indeed trespassing, and do not belong there. They're pitted against black gang members, and we were more on the gang's side, because the white dudes pretty much FAFO-ed. I think the movie leans that way, too. At the minimum, nobody's really a "good guy" in this. This is a very 90s movie, but with a very 70s feel. A little of Assault on Precinct 13 mixed with a little of New Jack City.
posted by mrphancy at 2:16 PM on September 9 [1 favorite]

I saw this movie years ago and liked it a lot, but I never was able to watch it again because I couldn't remember the name. So thanks for posting this; I'm going to revisit it tonight!
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:23 PM on September 9

All right I'm back! I think I enjoyed that movie even more the second time.

What really stood out to me this time was how well they used humor to break up the intensity. If it had just been tension and shooting all the way through, I would've finished it feeling wrung out, but instead I had a big grin on my face. (Did you catch that the guy with the baseball shoes was named Cleatus?)

There were an awful lot of convenient mutual simultaneous shootouts, you know? They had to pare down the number of survivors for Plot Reasons.

And in the end, the treasure went exactly where it ought to.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:41 AM on September 10 [1 favorite]