Trap

Rating 7/10

Trap marks a thrilling return to form from writer and director M. Night Shyamalan. Ever since The Village in 2004, I’ve found his projects lacking the spark that defined his best work. However, I’m delighted to report that this is his most captivating release in two decades—though it comes with some significant caveats.

In a nutshell, Trap is a thriller about a serial killer called “The Butcher” trying to evade the police. It centers on a father named Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) attending a concert with his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue). He soon discovers there is a heightened police presence at the venue. The authorities don’t know who the culprit is, but they have received an anonymous tip that he is indeed showing up at this event.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you already know this detail I’m about to reveal, but if you prefer to see a movie without any prior information, stop reading this review now. Okay? Here we go…

Turns out Cooper is a very bad man. For you see, he is the wanted criminal they’re looking for. We’re reminded of this every time he pulls out his cell phone camera, and we see one of his poor victims (Mark Bacolcol) handcuffed and chained in an undisclosed location, screaming for help. The audience follows everything from Cooper’s point of view, so we’re put in the awkward position of rooting for the villain’s success. Still, our overwhelming desire is for Cooper to get caught. Yet, time and again, he confronts various people and situations and evades them so easily that it grows exasperating.

He shouldn’t be hard to catch. The towering 6′ 3″ actor sticks out like a sore thumb. Cooper’s chirpy, overly cheerful demeanor is such a transparent attempt at normalcy. He fails spectacularly. His exaggerated manners belie a sociopath. At one point, he happily suggests to Riley that they sneak down through a stage door under the floor to see what’s down there. Even his daughter blankly questions him, “Dad, why are you acting so weird?” The line rings hilariously accurate.

The unique premise is a series of wildly bewildering developments. A t-shirt salesman (Jonathan Langdon) at the venue immediately spills the beans on everything he’s supposed to keep secret from Cooper, a man he just met who fits the exact description of the criminal. After Cooper steals a two-way radio, he overhears law enforcement warning that the suspect will probably try to create a diversion by pulling a fire alarm  just as he takes his hand off the fire alarm. It goes on like this. Early on, I stopped scrutinizing the many implausibilities and embraced it for the future cult classic that it is.

Another feature that makes it so funny is he’s being pursued by a psychological profiler for the FBI. She is played by none other than actress Hayley Mills, who was famously in The Parent Trap–a casting joke, to be sure. Anyway, her introduction to the audience is quite dramatic when she first turns around in a way that acknowledges her status as a legendary thespian. It’s not subtle. Rapper Kid Cudi also appears as a music performer called The Thinker in a performative demonstration clearly designed to be humorous. The only thing I’ll say about his presence is that it’s funnier when the laughs are unintentional.

The concert scenes are well staged, and the magnitude of the event feels like a real show. Cooper and Riley are there to see a performer named Lady Raven. The star is putting on a high-production show not unlike Taylor Swift, albeit with songs that are far less memorable. At least Shyamalan cast his daughter Saleka in this role. That was nice of him as she is a singer and this is her first acting role. That is painfully obvious in the final act when Saleka is required to carry the entire project. The heavy lifting is too much for her.

In the first two acts, Trap is like a train dramatically speeding out of control, but by the third, it goes completely off the rails. The premise devolves into something so outrageously ridiculous that it becomes pure camp. The plot is undone by a series of developments so implausible and loaded with twists that it unintentionally morphs into a comedy. Nevertheless, despite its flaws, it is an insanely entertaining escapade that I thoroughly enjoyed. This story begs to be experienced in a packed theater, where a crowd of snarky viewers can shout back at the screen at every absurd twist. I welcomed this experience for the cheesy, fun-filled ride that it truly is. Trap is an over-the-top spectacle, and that’s precisely what makes it so much fun.

08-01-24