TrapThe film's premise sounded tailor-made to play to M. Night Shyamalan's strengths and perhaps even say something about the modern era of superstars turning their concerts into cinematic events. But for all its promise, the thriller almost immediately runs out of steam. Shyamalan's latest film is a convoluted misfire whose handful of interesting ideas isn't enough to keep it from feeling like a notable low point in the director's filmography.
In its first act, Trap The film follows mild-mannered father Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) as the pair head downtown to see superstar Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) perform in concert. Though Cooper himself doesn't quite understand the singer's appeal, she means everything to his daughter. And while Riley deals with drama with her friends at school, Cooper is only too happy to distract herself with a few hours of live music.
Almost everyone who knows the Adams sees them as just another father-daughter duo excited to watch the show. Cooper has a secret, though: he's a serial killer who has his next victim trapped in a dungeon. You can feel the influence of serial killer dramas like You and Right handed in the way Trap juxtaposes moments of familiar banality with shots of Cooper sneaking nervous glances at his phone to watch a live feed of the man he plans to murder next. But Shyamalan's twist comes early on, when Trap It establishes how Lady Raven's gig is actually an elaborate ploy to oust Cooper.
Trap is inspired by Operation Flagshipthe 1985 sting operation in which U.S. Marshals and D.C. police lured wanted criminals to the Washington Convention Center with the promise of free football tickets. Shyamalan draws on that true story to imagine how a Taylor Swift-style concert filled with thousands of screaming teenagers could be a weapon against a monster. But as Trap As that thought exercise unfolds, the film quickly becomes caught up in its central idea.
Part of the problem is how Trap It's hard to believe this even in a Shyamalan film, as Cooper uses his constant “trips to the merch table” to learn more about how the police plan to catch him. The cops are pulling men out of the audience and they're not letting people leave without being interviewed. But none of those dangers feel especially pressing to Cooper because of how easily he can avoid them thanks to the plot armor Shyamalan places on him out of necessity.
The strangeness of Cooper's behavior is supposed to be read as part of his sociopathy, repeatedly walking away from his daughter on the concert floor. Cooper has to really get the movie moving. Otherwise things would end rather abruptly. But Trap It becomes increasingly difficult to take him seriously as Cooper's situation pushes him to take a series of increasingly absurd, but not exactly exciting, risks to evade capture.
There is something absurd about the way Cooper is able to navigate TrapShyamalan’s cat-and-mouse game almost seems to want to say something about what kind of people are seen as threats to society. As Cooper, Hartnett completely lacks charisma, and there’s an awkwardness to his interactions with Riley that doesn’t seem entirely intentional. But he’s a good-looking white guy, and that seems to be enough to keep people from noticing his obvious weirdness.
If less of Cooper's escape tricks—which serve as central elements of the film—arose by chance, Trap It might work a little better as a predator-becomes-prey thriller, but the film goes to such absurd lengths to keep the story alive that it definitely feels like Shyamalan ran out of solid ideas from the start.
Everything about Trap, From its story to the way it also functions as a vehicle for his daughter's career as a musician, it makes it seem like exactly the kind of project you might expect from Shyamalan, who has He has often self-financed his films since 2015.The director himself makes a cameo as Lady Raven's uncle and becomes part of the story in a way that connects him to Cooper's search for a way out. But Shyamalan's presence in the film is somewhat distracting and has a way of drawing attention to how many of the main characters are the protagonists. TrapThe characters in ' speak to the camera with a cloyingness that the director usually likes a lot.
Conceptually, this is one of Shyamalan's most intriguing films, but its foundation is so narrow that it ends up feeling like the director has set himself up for it. It's a testament to his ability to come up with novel ideas, but that alone isn't always enough to make for a good time at the cinema.
