M. Night Shyamalan, 25 years after achieving mainstream success with The Sixth Sense, still remains a very interesting filmmaker – full of ideas that are creative and bold, however, only occasionally leading to good movies. One of his latest works is the serial-killer-stuck-at-a-pop-concert thriller Trap, which is definitely faster and more heightened in tone than what we have seen from him in Unbreakable, Split or Old. For about two thirds of its 105 minutes though it’s a lot of fun.
With that said, the plot for much of this one hour and forty-five minute film involves people chasing ghosts around a crumbling apartment building. In other words, Josh Hartnett plays an overwhelmed and underpaid firefighter who has to take his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), who is her favorite singer. Cooper is also The Butcher – and if you haven’t noticed yet by all the police officers present at this event, it means nothing else than that everyone in the concert hall will walk out except for him after he’s been identified and captured. This leads to Cooper having to figure out how he can get out before getting caught; it’s really cool that way. It’s audacious in its silliness as well as Shyamalan going all-out with such narrative ideas on display. That playfulness hardly ever shows up in his movies which are mostly serious affairs whether they turn out right or not. It was really fun watching Cooper schmoozing strangers for information while deftly swiping key cards and walkie talkies so that he had an advantage.
Moreover, Hartnett does a great job here playing against type which seems like he had quite a blast doing. Behind his loving dad façade there has always lurked a monster that was cunning as well as ruthless deep inside him since he showed up here. What works initially in Trap is that Cooper attempts to be both sides of who he is: a good father for Riley and at the same time always looking for an escape plan from their current environment. Hartnett’s portrayal of a man whose carefully constructed house of cards is about to fall apart was really well done. There is some nice manic energy to Cooper which Hartnett provides just like that right combination of desperation and determination that the film required. Additionally, Donoghue made for a fine scene partner as well. This has always been Shyamalan’s knack – sourcing great young actors, molding them into memorable roles (think Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense or Abigail Breslin in Signs) which he does once again with this girl playing Riley and creating some stakes.
Does any of this help Shyamalan kick his habit of writing clumsy awkward dialogue? No, although it’s less than when it can be at its worst (Old I’m talking about you) but somehow there seems to be a bit of rationale behind it – Cooper himself is acting after all, he is being like so polite, so earnest and so helpful that it takes on almost a satirical edge. This sort of ridiculousness fused with winking tone (closer in spirit to Shyamalan’s 2015 comeback film The Visit), helps make for several conceivably cringe-inducing exchanges if they were not delivered through Cooper at least.
Nonetheless, there are a number of clearly stupid scenes featuring a merchandise booth worker (Jonathan Langdon) who is really friendly, but very slow. He will not stop talking and revealing some important secrets that must be hidden from Cooper. In this scene, Cooper, the hero of the film eavesdrops on an FBI profiler while she makes her final comments just before the concert begins. It is noteworthy to mention that Hayley Mills, a former Disney child star plays as this character being recognized for having acted in ‘The Parent Trap’ original movie which could be one way to explain the unfolding of events to viewers.
However, it remains enjoyable for the first two thirds at least. If only Shyamalan managed to wrap it up properly. Instead he seemed like he had about four or three ideas for how the movie should have ended and decided to put them all together thus making things very complicated. There is something strange and annoying about how many times Trap feels like its last massive confrontation has been initiated only for it to lead into another sequence which seems like oh no! This must be how it’s going to end – then we get back to square one. It’s interesting in concept but doesn’t work well here because of too much perspective shift jammed into these last scenes. Towards its conclusion, Trap suddenly becomes focused on characters we either hardly know or have just seen for few seconds and abandon those characters that we actually are interested in such as Riley and Cooper in addition to introducing wild character curves concerning individuals’ interactions with Cooper.
The headliner for this concert who would be Taylor Swift/Olivia Rodrigo type performer is Shyamlan’s own daughter Saleka who wrote 14 songs specifically for this movie apart from performing them herself as Lady Raven in Trap. The music itself is unspectacular although fairly serviceable when it comes down invoking today’s top 40; also through displaying Lady Raven’s performance out front Saleka Shyamalan is shown to be a great singer and dynamic artist. But she is not very good in scenes where she shares the stage with few other actors, and at certain moments she even seems unnatural. It’s even worse when her father makes an unusual attempt for Lady Raven to get some connection with someone who is not into music globally. However, across the aisle is Alison Pill playing against type but coming in much too late for this movie – certainly too late to establish the important emotional core that Shyamalan tries to build around her. Her performance in the short period of time was great but we needed to meet her long before if she was going to be so important.
Verdict
For much of this movie M.Night Samyallan appears to be having some rare fun. While this may seem strange it is actually a good way for Josh Hartnett to demonstrate his acting prowess playing a serial killer who tries running from police during a sold-out concert. After all, everything goes haywire in its final sections as Shyamalan throws one fake ending after another at us increasingly stupidly unaware about which of these characters will deserve the last showdown with Hartnett’s character.
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