Trap
Trap
25 years after he entered the mainstream with The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan remains a compelling filmmaker – full of creative and daring ideas that only sometimes manifest as good movies. His new work—Trap, a thriller about a serial killer stuck at a pop concert—is aiming for something slightly more fast-paced and stylized than what we are used to from the director of Unbreakable, Split, and Old. For the most part though, it’s just fun for an hour and a half or so. Unfortunately, however, the search for this murderer named “The Butcher” goes way off track in its final third at all.
Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper Adams—a fireman who takes his young teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), her favorite singer in this singularly high concept film. That is until you realize that Cooper himself happens to be The Butcher; hence the unusually large number of police officers in attendance because it turns out that the entire concert is actually a trap designed to unmask one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Naturally enough this leaves him trying desperately to flee the place without getting caught by anyone. It is bold, silly stuff but Shyamalan has no qualms about going overboard with its outrageousness like here. Most times his films are far too serious even when they are not great ones. It’s highly entertaining watching Cooper talk his way out of trouble while adeptly picking pockets for security cards and walkie-talkies.
It’s all sold very convincingly by Hartnett though who appears to be having fun playing against type somewhat here. A loving dopey dad, Cooper long ago managed to bury deep inside him the ruthless assassin lurking there. At first Trap works when it has Cooper juggling both sides of his character: keeping Riley happy while always looking for an exit from their present location. Hartnett does a great job of playing a man whose carefully crafted façade is only one step away from crumbling. He gives just the perfect amount of hyperactive determination to Cooper and adds some lovely dark humor to the proceedings. And his costar, Donoghue, is more than up to the challenge. This has always been one of Shyamalan’s strengths – casting great young actors and getting the best out of them, like with Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense or Abigail Breslin in Signs – and it continues here. Donoghue turns in an excellent performance as Riley that brings home the pain for Trap: Cooper is a killer who should be brought down by any means necessary, but doing so would break this girl.
Does any of this help Shyamalan drop his habit of writing clumsy, decidedly mannered dialogue? No, although it’s not nearly as bad as it can sometimes be (I’m looking at you Old) and there’s almost an explanation for that given how he has Cooper pretending to be someone else. This character is overly nice, too sincere and unhelpful in excess as well. A numberof what might have been eye-rolling exchanges are toned down by making Cooper act as if he isn’t being serious at all—a trick learned from 2015’s movie called The Visit—since he is trying to put on a show himself.
However, there are still several notably foolish scenes that feature an extremely friendly and stupid merch-booth guy who despite himself has to give Cooper very important tips that he is supposed not to know. Also, Trap relies on convenience and coincidence too much as Cooper always overhears a renowned FBI profiler speaking just the exact moment she may have repeated the same thing over and over again with her colleagues well before the concert. The talented former Disney child star Hayley Mills plays a profiler whose most famous film was the original Parent Trap—her casting feels like the script is nudging us.
Nevertheless, Trap is enjoyable for its first two thirds. If only Shyamalan could have then delivered such a satisfying conclusion. It seems rather however, that he must have had numerous ideas on how this movie could possibly end thus he included all of them resulting into one big mix-up in which we cannot tell what’s happening at all. There are lots of instances when it seems that Trap should be winding down to its final confrontation but then goes along with this oh no; it must be over – only for it to repeat all over again. Conceptually interesting though these last scenes might seem, there’s also another huge problem with their execution. Suddenly, towards the end of Trap, much attention is shifted onto characters we barely know or some whom we encountered recently. With characters like Riley and Cooper being overshadowed by these random curveballs thrown in terms of how any given character interacts with cooper.
Shyamlan’s own daughter Saleka played Taylor Swift/Olivia Rodrigo like headliner in the concert who wrote and performed 14 songs from scratch specifically for “Trap,” so she already had material ready before production started. This music isn’t notable but works as far as reminding oneself about what currently can be heard on radio stations while Saleka Shyamalan shows promise as a singer and stage performer based on her work as Lady Raven here. However, in the quieter moments, she seems to be missing a beat and that is unfortunate. Plus, her father gave her one of those weird Lady Raven’s scene where she tries too hard at times when speaking with some ordinary person not being an international pop star. Alison Pill though on the other hand is as formidable as ever in this film but comes out way too late into it for the impact on its story. While Pill does strong work in a minor part, we should have met this woman long before if she were going to be such a huge player in this story.
Verdict
For much of Trap’s running time, director M. Night Shyamalan seems to be having a rare moment of levity. In fact, Josh Hartnett gets to wear several different hats here including playing serial killer who wants to avoid being captured in the middle of an open-air concert . However, events become unraveled during its final stages as Shyamalan has one fake ending overlapping another all while failing at any point to decide which character should ultimately confront Hartnett.
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- Genre: Crime, Featured, Popular Movies, Thriller, Top Rated Movies
- Country: United States
- Director: M. Night Shyamalan
- Cast: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Jonathan Langdon, Mark Bacolcol, Marnie McPhail, Kid Cudi, Russ, Marcia Bennett, Vanessa Smythe, M. Night Shyamalan, Lochlan Ray Miller, Steve Boyle, David D'Lancy Wilson, James Gomez, Nadine Hyatt, Michael Brown, Hailey Summer, Olivia Barrett,
