In the 25 years since M. Night Shyamalan stormed into the world of cinema with The Sixth Sense, I think we can safely say that this golden boy was a fluke. While he has created several notable and critically praised movies, he’s made just as many, if not more, films that are derided and scorned like Avatar: The Last Airbendee. I’ve noticed that he’s usually at his best when he has movies with simple concepts. Trap, if anything, is a movie with a simple concept.
“What if Hannibal Lecter was trapped at a Taylor Swift concert and he had to find a way to escape before the police discovered who he was?” That’s a pretty interesting premise and one that you can mine for a lot of good thrills and drama. As long as you cast a solid actor to play the serial killer, then it can be a great pressure cooker as we watch him frantically try to escape with the threat of a ticking clock looming above his head. And it is a great thriller… until it isn’t.
Trap
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Release Date: August 2, 2024 (Theatrical)
Rating: PG-13
As I said above, the central premise of the movie is a remarkably simple one – Josh Harnett plays a serial killer, Cooper Adams, who is stuck at a concert for this pop star that his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), loves, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), and discovers that the entire concert is a trap set for him. The venue has been surrounded by hundreds of cops and an FBI profiler was brought on to predict his movements and trap him in the venue, so he needs to find some way to escape or else he’s going to be arrested. To make matters more complicated, Riley is becoming suspicious of his actions at the concert, so he also needs to make sure she doesn’t become aware that he’s the infamous serial killer, The Butcher, as well, or his happy suburban life is over.
From the moment we enter the concert venue and Cooper realizes that the concert was a set-up to catch him, Trap becomes a wonderful game of cat and mouse. You can see the gears turning in Cooper’s head at all times as he looks for every possibility to try and escape the venue. The film doesn’t waste its time trying to get to the meat of its concept either, throwing us right into the concert within the first five minutes. It knows where its strength lies, so it doesn’t waste time trying to establish stakes or a large supporting cast. It just places our protagonist/villain in the spotlight and says go.
I don’t think the movie would be nearly as entertaining if it wasn’t for Josh Harnett’s performance. The actor has had somewhat of a resurgence in recent years, mostly thanks to his performance in last year’s Oppenheimer, but Trap shows he can be a great leading man too. His facial expressions are always on point and he balances playing the loving father and a sociopathic serial killer perfectly. He becomes all the more satisfying as we see him slowly slip from his good-natured father and break at various points, whether it be his frustration when he encounters the mother of one of Riley’s former friends or seeing him watch his victim via his cellphone. I don’t think Trap would be as good as it is if it wasn’t for Harnett’s performance.
Copyright: Warner Bros.
Thanks to that, there’s tension in nearly every scene as we try to figure out if there’s any way for him to escape. We don’t want him to escape, but we kind of do at the same time. We’re curious if he can escape his certain capture, and if he can, how is it even possible? When he interacts privately with people, we don’t know if he’s going to kill them for some purpose or let them go just so he can get information. He’s calculated at times and you can see him get desperate and try whatever it takes to flee, while at the same time not arousing suspicion to ensure his capture. I can safely say that when the film is solely focused on Cooper trying to discover a way out, that’s when Trap is at its best.
Sure, there are some minor hiccups during this part of the movie, but that’s sadly become standard for Shyamalan movies. Shyamalan is great at crafting concepts, but the biggest weakness he’s always had as a director is he never knows how to write them. You can see weak scripts in virtually all of his movies, including last year’s Knock at the Cabin, and Trap sadly continues that trend. While it makes sense for Josh Harnett to speak somewhat oddly given his role as a deeply disturbed and deranged killer who is attempting to blend into normal civilian life, other characters don’t feel quite natural. Lady Raven’s dialogue, when we do get a chance to see her behind the stage, is stilted, the same with Cooper’s wife, Rachel (Allison Pill), and the attempts at trying to sound hip with Gen-Z phrases from Riley are cringe at best.
It doesn’t detract too much from my enjoyment of the film, but what does ultimately get in the way is the second half of the movie. I won’t spoil exactly what happens, especially given how well the trailers hide it and how it flips the entire concept on its head, but it turns the movie into a much more traditional thriller. The uniqueness of the premise is tossed away in favor of trying to ratchet up the intensity of the situation, but it makes the film lose its originality and become something I’ve seen before.
Copyright: Warner Bros.
You know how in a slasher movie audiences can grow frustrated at characters for making incredibly dumb decisions, but they need to make those dumb decisions or we won’t have any gory kills? The same is true here. In order to hit the beats that Shyamalan wants to hit, he forces his characters to make dumb decisions after dumb decisions to reach that point. Granted, the central premise is a forced one to begin with, but the second half feels especially forced trying to ratchet up the tension.
I’m reminded of The Stepfather in a lot of ways. That movie had a similar premise – the ideal father is actually a serial killer and tries to hide it from his family – but unlike that cult classic, Trap forgoes a lot of subtlety to get there. Characters will pull off seemingly impossible and illogical feats just to keep the movie going, even when there were plenty of points where the movie, thematically, should have ended. The film runs less than an hour and 45 minutes, but a part of me wishes that the film was even shorter so it could expand upon the first half of the film.
Even if the second half of the movie is noticeably weaker than the first, Trap never becomes bad. It’s still supported by a wonderful lead performance and the first half feels complete and the best execution of its concept. If that part of the movie was expanded and the film was a lean 70 or 80 minutes, then this could easily be one of Shyamalan’s best movies. But Trap isn’t that movie. It’s the movie with a flawed second half that pushes its thriller elements a little too far. I still had a solid time with Trap and I would call it one of Shyamalan’s better films, but it’s a far cry from the potential he had all those years ago.
