TRAP Review

I once had a literature professor who'd also served as the mayor of the small town I was attending community college in. Besides the lessons on William Blake, I don't remember much from the class, but of the many anecdotes the professor told the one I am reminded of most was about how, when he was mayor, a detective met him at city hall and commented on how he knew he was neither a corrupt politician nor serial killer because his office was so unorganized. Please understand this was in 2006, so before Dexter premiered, and before my Friday nights consisted of consuming episodes of 48 Hours as a way to decompress. That is to say, this felt like such an insight at the time. The professor would go on to note how the detective told him a favorable statistic showing that more often than not these people in positions of great risk were obsessive about the state of the world they crafted not only so they had the right boxes checked should said world ever be questioned but because psychologically their impulses wouldn't let them operate in any other way. And so, while the overly obsessive, neat-freak of a serial killer is a somewhat tired trope in 2024 M. Night Shyamalan's Trap utilizes it to great effect in the most Shyamalan of ways by clearly telegraphing the film's themes and intentions almost immediately while at the same time possessing something of an unidentifiable spirit that both suggests and reassures to inquiring viewers that there's more going on than meets the eye. 

What's great about Trap is its seeming disregard for harboring any kind of notion that it needs to sport a signature Shyamalan twist. Given the trailers there was something of an expectation that there might be more to the set-up and there is, to a certain extent, but it puts all of its cards on the table early with the appeal of the film largely resting on this brilliant, four-quadrant set-up. Sure, the movie is also something of a soft launch for Shyamalan's daughter's music career, but this is largely "The Josh Hartnett Show" and with the pre-release narratives established around not only Hartnett's comeback but the buzzy premise and the hope the director might deliver a late-summer surprise all indicators pointed to Trap being a major touchpoint in pop culture this year even if it ended up as one of M. Night's more minor works. Fortunately, Trap is more interesting because of how it unfolds rather than only because of what happens in the final moments which, while likely disappointing for some, will seemingly ensure the enduring qualities of the movie as a whole for much longer than if Shyamalan were solely banking on a build-up and reveal. As stated in the marketing, this is an experience through and through, an experience that represents the writer/director crafting what is almost the antithesis of what we've come to expect from him in that as far as instead of looking for clues to piece together a puzzle we're simply looking for the next logical step that might allow both us and Hartnett's killer to escape for a little longer.

Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) attend a concert where ulterior motives are at play in M. Night Shyamalan's Trap.
Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictur - © 2024 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

After two rather heady explorations concerning time and intolerance with his last two features it seems Shyamalan's biggest goal with Trap was to have some fun with the cat and mouse thriller. Granted, that doesn't mean switching lanes completely, but rather the writer/director leans into his trademark touches even more so than usual making aspects like his plain and unaffected dialogue funnier than usual while the building of suspense and setting of tone ratchets up both the dread and tension in these heightened circumstances. While sure to catch some off-guard, the comedy here is not at all unintentional (just peep Kid Cudi's character) but what is maybe most impressive is Shyamalan's ability to keep the balance of comedy and tension in check enough that much of it translates to an uncomfortable unease throughout; we chuckle to relieve some of the pressure of the situation. Said situation is presented bluntly in terms of the facts of it all: a seemingly average dad, Cooper (Hartnett), is taking his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a "Lady Raven" concert, the performer portrayed by Saleka Shyamalan in an unabashed attempt to showcase her musical talent (Lil' Shyamalan wrote many of the songs performed in the film). The hook is that Cooper is of course not an average, middle-aged dad and that the concert is much more than just an additional afternoon show scheduled on a whim because of demand. Cooper is in fact a serial killer known as "The Butcher" and the concert is an elaborate ruse to...you guessed it...trap the killer and bring him to justice. That's so Raven.

Of course, the set-up is deceptive in its simplicity for as soon as we enter this world Shyamalan can't help but draw larger themes from the material. For starters, the setting of a concert, a place where hundreds of thousands of people gather at the same time for what we assume is the same purpose despite the odds that at least one if not multiple undoubtedly land on the crazy side is a legitimately scary thought when stopping to consider the possibilities (and probabilities). Our fascination with serial killers and what provokes these monstrous tendencies folds into this idea of how easy it is to conceive of one of them being among the 30,000 people attending a concert. Add to the already mounting layers that this serial killer has a daughter where his love for her feels authentic despite knowing in the back of his mind that one day this will have to end and she will see him for who he truly is - the movie begs the question, "How can someone so mournful about what they’ll miss take as much away from others so easily?" Add onto this yet another layer when you consider Shyamalan has cast his own daughter in the film, the first of two daughters who have elected to follow in his footsteps (Ishana directed The Watchers released earlier this summer), in a movie about a dad with mommy issues who is trying to “never let the two lives touch" yet can't prevent them from bleeding into one another. Has Shyamalan himself given into this ideology when it comes to mixing work and his personal life or is he simply taking this opportunity to help his daughter with her career as a way to evaluate and make peace with his own feelings about the kind of father he's been? That the writer/director somehow injects this amount of substantive material into a movie where Hartnett is ostensibly being a cringy dad whose fight or flight conflict increases with each sequence is the film's greatest accomplishment even if you come away wondering about some of the specifics of Hartnett's "flight" tactics.

Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) is a pop star who gets caught up in the search for a serial killer.
Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictur - © 2024 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Whether Shyamalan was baking as much into Trap or I'm just projecting is a valid question and even though it would have been preferable had the entirety of the movie played out from within the concert arena - the screenplay makes some of its most interesting statements through its least plausible act, the final one. Reminiscent of those fugitive-on-the-run movies where they have to outsmart the authorities, the way in which Hartnett's Cooper outsmarts those who are chasing him, namely an FBI profiler played by Hayley Mills (yes, that Hayley Mills), strain credulity the longer the film goes on (and it admittedly overstays its welcome) but through the sheer will of Hartnett's unhinged but very calculated - a neat freak, overly obsessive killer would never allow themselves to go fully deranged - performance we become privy to the aforementioned inner-conflict that has been building in The Butcher since realizing this could very well be the end of the line for him. 

The first three-quarters of the film are all about the chase as well as some politics of parenting involving key decisions about when you introduce smart phones and all of their capabilities to your child as well as navigating disagreements in the friend group both as a parent to your own child as well as a parent in league with your child's friend's parents but while these are nice tidbits of truth that lend Hartnett and his daughter's connection more dimensions it is in the final act where Hartnett is forced to confront his demons in the presence of his family that we get to the good stuff in terms of the larger themes. Shyamalan often goes to a shot in the film where Hartnett is framed so we only see half his face and this likely represents something along the lines of how the character has only ever presented half of who he truly is for the majority of his life, but maybe this is also the issue with the film overall in that it is two halves of the same line of thought unable to reconcile one aspect with the other. The cat and mouse thriller is fun and intense while the negotiations between The Butcher and Lady Raven are insightful and interesting yet while complimentary in many ways there is never a cohesion that melds the symbolism and reason in a truly impactful fashion. It is a hell of a lot of fun though, and for a movie whose climactic scene reaches a literal boiling point - maybe that is what it was mostly meant to do.