"TRAP" - REVIEW
So! I was solidly entertained by TRAP (marketed as “A New M. Night Shyamalan Experience”). How much you enjoy TRAP may depend on two things: how much you buy into its central premise, and how willing you are to go along with the often-bonkers ways in which that premise plays out.
Doting father Cooper (Minnesota native Josh Hartnett, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) and his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue, WOLF LIKE ME) have scored amazing concert tickets for pop sensation Lady Raven (the director’s daughter, Salekah Night Shyamalan, who also wrote and performed all of her own songs) for a daytime performance at an arena that is oversaturated with police. Cooper probes further into this and learns that the concert itself is an elaborate ruse, the titular trap for a serial killer known as The Butcher, and an FBI profiler (Hayley Mills— yessssss, THAT Hayley Mills, coming out of retirement for another movie that could also be called THE PARENT TRAP) is closing in as the number of songs on the set list goes down. So what’s the problem? It’s not spoiling anything to say this, since the trailers already revealed it, but aside from his cool dad vibe, Cooper moonlights as The Butcher, whose thirteenth victim awaits him, under surveillance and in chains.
Now, because we (the audience) possess this information from the get-go, not only do we get to watch Cooper try to free himself, but we also get to see if Shyamalan can similarly weasel his way out of the tight narrative corner he has painted himself into. Both prospects are equally suspenseful, and always engaging for different reasons: A) because we find ourselves liking Cooper immediately, in spite of his sinister hobby, and B) we know that Shyamalan can set up a premise like no other… and prove to be maddeningly inconsistent in whether or not he can satisfyingly pay it off.
But that’s sort of part of Shyamalan’s brand, isn’t it? In addition to his typically moody atmosphere (this time sumptuously lensed on 35MM film by Luca Guadanigno’s go-to cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom), his semi-wooden dialogue, his sporadic bouts of humor (both intentional and unintentional), his trademark Philadelphia settings and of course, a late-breaking twist, this is what we come to expect from a Shyamalan film. While his new thriller forgoes a supernatural element this time around, everything else, for better or worse, is intact, and I still had a lot of fun.
What did I find fun? Let’s start with Hartnett. It’s a joy to see him back in Hollywood movies, following up a strong supporting role as Ernest Lawrence in last summer’s blockbuster and Best Picture Oscar winner OPPENHEIMER with a terrific leading man role. Hartnett is one of those actors who is easy to miscast, but absolutely excels in the right role. Now that he’s older and some of the Hart-throb boyishness has faded, his eyes still pop with eagerness, world-weariness, firmness (in several amusing run-ins with a problematic school friend’s mother) or outright menace, with the slightest shift. He gets a great role with Cooper, who is constantly shifting who he needs to be depending on who he’s with, whether it’s his blissed-out daughter, stadium employees, police, or even more direct threats to his escape, becoming increasingly more erratic the closer he gets to being ensnared. His work here is comparable to his excellent turn as Hugo, the Iago character in “O”, the modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello from 2001, except with a bigger and broader sense of humor. There are certain grace notes in his performance that only Hartnett can hit, and his calculated charm goes a long way. I’m excited to see what he’s up to next.
Additionally, the decision to cast Mills, with her elegance and no-nonsense delivery, is both inspired and loony, as she “narrates” across police radio frequencies what their prey is currently experiencing and what he may try to do next. I wish her part was a little juicier, but her presence is welcome. It’s also a treat to see Alison Pill (THE NEWSROOM, SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD) as Cooper’s wife, and of course, the director himself appears briefly in a part that (thankfully) doesn’t detract from the film’s lean function.
Shyamalan‘s last several films have been contained thrillers, and this is one of a different sort: only with 30,000 screaming fans in the audience. His script has a very 90s thriller vibe to it, almost as if he wrote in the 90s, and then he added smartphones and TikTok to it right before shooting (this sounds like a dig, but I was all for it). While I didn’t find the songs to be particularly memorable, they get the job done (as does Salekah as an actor), and the concert they mounted for the production is impressive. I often have a problem with the way media and pop stars (especially imaginary ones) come across in movies and how there are certain details they just don’t get right, but the Lady Raven show feels real enough (there’s also an album of her music being released, if that’s your thing). In his aim to “set THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS at a Taylor Swift concert,” Shyamalan keeps a fairly even tone throughout, which helps in the second half, when what some people might view as questionable twists develop. Like I said, a little bonkers.
Some questions I came away with were related to the responsibility of releasing a movie like this. Kudos to Shyamalan, who has self-financed his last several movies, and then partnered with studios to release them, granting him total creative freedom and maximum profit when the film succeeds… But what are we to glean from making and releasing a PG-13 rated movie in which a serial killer is the main character? Why make a serial killer film with no grisly bits, where all the kills are offscreen? If movies are rated PG-13 so teenagers can see them without their parents, or to generally make more money… just who is this movie supposed to be for at the end of the day? What about Cooper’s poor family? What about that ending? How are we supposed to feel?
Bottom line, it’s a good August movie, and a solid 90s throwback thriller. Let these moral implications bother you if you like, or just throw your hands up and say, “it’s only a movie.“
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Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Alliance (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: https://mnfilmcriticalliance.wordpress.com/