The best thing about Trap is the idea of Trap. In the film, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, a man who brings his daughter to a concert realizes the entire event is an elaborate trap to capture him. This man, who is by all appearances a normal father named Cooper, is actually a brutal serial killer nicknamed the Butcher. And he’ll stop at nothing to not just escape this trap, but make sure his daughter has no idea about any of it.
Josh Hartnett plays Cooper/the Butcher and gives one of the performances of his career. From scene to scene, we watch as Cooper transforms himself between each opposed half. It creates great tension and at times he all but reverberates on screen, half of him wanting to kill, half of him wanting to be a cool dad to his daughter (Ariel Donoghue). Unfortunately, the rest of Trap doesn’t have that same level of energy or excitement. It’s entertaining and surprising but lacks a certain level of fun that would’ve raised it to another level.
The setting is a Lady Raven concert—with the fictional pop star played by real-life artist Saleka Shyamalan. Shyamalan, the daughter of the director, helped mastermind the film with her father and wrote all of its music specifically for the movie. On the one hand, that gives the character of Lady Raven some welcome authenticity. On the other hand, none of the songs are particularly catchy or impact the movie in any noteworthy way. As a result, everything feels one-note. Pun intended.
There’s also the fact that most of Trap is set in a single location, this concert venue, which has its positives and negatives too. Shyamalan explores every area of the venue, making it feel like a worthy place to trap the Butcher. However, whether he’s on the roof, in a locker room, buying concessions, or walking in the halls, because it’s all the same place, everything feels very similar. It mirrors Lady Raven’s music in that way and, together, both work to hold the film back ever so slightly.
Fighting up against that is the inherently interesting idea that the audience is simultaneously hoping that the Butcher gets caught, but is also curious to see how he could escape. Shyamalan stacks everything against the character but then often, and quite obviously, drops in a tiny nugget that tips his hand: “There’s no way out, except backstage of course.” Things like that. So along the way, we have an idea of where things are going but are still desperate to see how they play out. The problem is, we know the Butcher is not going to be captured 20 or 30 minutes into the movie, so the stakes are inherently dialed back, at least at the start.
That shifts drastically in the third act though when the entire nature of the film itself changes. Obviously we won’t spoil it here but once Trap is less about the trap and more about the characters, it starts to fly. You get a real sense that Shyamalan’s idea was hindered a bit by its guardrails and you wish the movie was more of the ending than the beginning.
Either way, those parts are in there and Trap is never, ever boring. Shyamalan simply has a way of coming up with an idea that keeps you on the edge of your seat until all is revealed. That’s helped immensely by Hartnett’s amazing performance and, of course, Shyamalan does have some tricks up his sleeves later in the film. As a result, Trap isn’t on the level of the filmmaker’s best (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, Split) but it’s far, far from his worst either. If you’re a fan of him, or curious about the premise, you’ll enjoy Trap much more than you won’t.
Trap is now in theaters.
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