Movie Review – Trap
Principal Cast : Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Jonathan Langdon, Mark Bacolcol, Marnie McPhail, Kid Cudi, Russ, Marcia Bennett, Lochlan Miller.
Synopsis: A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they’ve entered the center of a dark and sinister event.
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This review contains plot spoilers for Trap. Read only if you have seen the film.
I noted in my review of M Night Shyamalan’s “cabin in the woods” thriller Knock At The Cabin that I think the director works best when dealing with isolation and human tragedy, something he has tapped since breakout success with The Sixth Sense and has continued unevenly throughout the two decades since. I enjoyed both Knock At The Cabin and Old, films that dealt largely with being cut off from the outside world to some degree, and I think he tells his best stories when high emotion and terror are manifested when there’s so no hope of an easy out. Trap, M Night’s first film with Warner Bros since the lamented Lady In The Water back in 2006, steps wildly in the opposite direction to his previous films, notable mainly for being set inside a pop concert and having the principal character – a sadistic serial killer played by heartthrob Josh Hartnett – revealed early and often, effectively turning this into an “escape from a crowded scenario” plot device that works beautifully… right up until it doesn’t. Trap is in one respect a terrific cat and mouse thriller, for at least two thirds of the film, before taking a sharp left turn into contrivance and inexplicable stupidity from the characters on the screen, and ruining what I felt was quite a sensational setup.
Hartnett plays Philadelphia firefighter Cooper Abbott, who is taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a last-minute pop concert at the city’s biggest indoor arena, as a treat. The performer is Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan), a Taylor Swift-style feminist icon popular with the tweenage set, and who Riley adores; Cooper has floor tickets to the show and engages with Riley in a hugely positive manner despite an easy disinterest in the show. Unbeknownst to both Riley and everyone around them, Cooper is also an evil serial killer, tagged The Butcher by local law enforcement, who encircle the stadium upon the crowd’s arrival and stand in the way of any easy escape. Cooper learns that the concert is merely a plot, a trap set by Philly PD to ensnare The Butcher, led by FBI Profiler Dr Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills), and as the net slowly tightens the psychopathic killer must use all his guile, charm and intelligence to outwit the law, protect his secret identity, and return to his hideout and kill the man currently imprisoned there.
Trap’s setup is brilliant. The film delights in putting one of the worst kind of people imaginable into an impossible scenario, and making us root for him. Hartnett’s character is duplicitous and sly, cruel and conniving, and yet the actor takes us along for the ride as we almost hope he gets away; it’s the Ratatouille effect once more, taking an unimaginable character we all would loathe and making him the protagonist in his own story – that Shyamalan delivers this so wonderfully, and that Hartnett turns from winning dad to sadistic killer in the blink of an eye, makes the early going in this movie a hell of a fun ride. The film is neatly split into three distinct sections. The opening third introduces us to Cooper and Riley, a dad and daughter attending a massive concert, with a surprisingly heavy police presence but one that Cooper is intending on enjoying. The film builds the dynamic between Riley and Cooper, and Cooper and several other supporting characters throughout the film, easily enough. Then, the reveal, that Cooper is the killer known as The Butcher, and suddenly it ratchets up the tension dramatically. It’s obvious that Riley has no idea who her doting father really is, and when Cooper discovers that the Philadelphia PD have concocted this whole concert as an elaborate ruse to lure him in, it sets him on a collision course between his dual identities. The first two thirds of the film are absolutely masterful, a ripe mystery-thriller delivering red herrings, close calls, subterfuge and guile, and Shyamalan absolutely knocks it out of the park. I was really enjoying it.
However, and this is a big however, at some point Cooper (together with Riley) have to escape the arena and the cops, in order to prolong the narrative. It’s at this moment that Shyamalan overcomplicates things and turns a respectably taut thriller into one of the dumbest, least convincing endings I’ve seen in quite a while. Evading capture at the stadium, Cooper and Riley convince Lady Raven to escort them back to Riley’s mothers house – I assume Cooper and his wife, Rachel (Alison Pill) are estranged, and the concert is Cooper’s attempt to maintain contact with his children – where all hell breaks loose and so does the plot. The final third of the film utterly vacates any tension, with several of Cooper’s decisions being utterly idiotic: he blackmails one of the world’s biggest pop stars into taking him and his daughter home, on the threat that one of the Butcher’s victims might not make it out alive? Lady Raven’s limo isn’t swamped by adoring fans the moment it leaves, or is tracked by paparazzi wherever it goes? It’s numbskull choices by Shyamalan (who write the script) that really undoes a lot of the good work the film achieves early on, and the natural unease of watching a serial killer try to evade a ring of steel by hundreds of cops inside and outside the concert itself evaporates. The jeopardy of being caught is what makes the first two thirds’ of Trap’s excellent narrative strengths work so well, and by taking the chase outside, into an uncontrolled area where coincidence and convenience could undo all his good work, the film’s final third struggles to maintain that heightened sense of doom.
Chief to my enjoyment of Trap is the easy-breezy performance of Josh Hartnett, who personifies the dad-charm of an ageing out-of-touch Gen X-er taking his daughter to a screaming, loud Lady Raven concert. Hartnett’s fatherly persona works well, his softy-around-the-edges demeanour perfectly masking the twitchy slyness of his alter ego, the maniacal Butcher. It’s a remarkable performance, I felt, and in keeping with the B-movie stature of the plot I thought Hartnett handled the role as expertly and emotionally as he could. His co-star in Ariel Donoghoue is also excellent, manifesting the pubescent teenage daughter role who adores Lady Raven with ease – the actress looks for all the world like this kind of fandom might be one she inhabits in real life, and although Donoghue’s role is largely inconsequential later in the film’s diabolical third act, she holds her own alongside Hartnett for the first two thirds. Also delivering a solid performance is the director’s daughter, Saleka Night Shyamalan, playing popstar Lady Raven. She’s dynamic, fluid and a natural talent, and a gifted singer (she composed several of the Lady Raven tracks performed in the film) but a strong screen presence she is not. Some of her acting range isn’t quite up to par with the rest of the pros around her, but for a larger than usual supporting turn Saleka is watchable enough. Shyamalan was either brave enough or silly enough to completely waste screen legend Haley Mills’ rare return to a big screen role as the FBI Profiler following The Butcher, while Alison Pill provides appropriate nervous energy as Cooper’s estranged wife. Bit parts to rappers Russ and Kid Cudi flesh out the celebrity quotient of the film, as no doubt this TikTok ready premise is meant to lure in younger viewers whereby Cudi and current influencer culture sit comfortably.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with Trap, but I also found it to be quite a disappointing film in the end. The premise of having a psycho ensnared by police and having to think his way out is one to salivate over, and Shyamalan delivers on this promise for most of the movie. But he can’t help himself in trying to go further with less than the story or characters can deliver on. Once Cooper and Riley “capture” Lady Raven and they leave the arena, effectively escaping immediate capture, the film jumps the rails and becomes laughably silly. Contrivance, convenience and manifestly stupid bait-and-switch direction from Shyamalan ruins a pretty effective setup and middle act genre piece; had he worked out a way to keep this film contained within the original location things would almost certainly have been far better to watch. Alas, Shyamalan bites off too much to chew on, and can’t maintain the tension all the way to the end. Still, the film is worth it for Hartnett’s engaging and at-times bonkers performance, and for a chance to see my childhood crush in Haley Mills on the big screen again. Temper your expectation accordingly.
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