With both critically acclaimed cult classics and mixed bags under his belt, going into review an M. Night Shyamalan movie like Trap instinctively comes the anxiety that you’re about to see either a hit or a miss with no in-between. Yes, this is the man who brought the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable to the world, but he delivered The Last Airbender and Glass – offenders arguably of the highest order.
In comes the latest in the latest of his attempts for redemption. Well-marketed with the interesting hook of a role reversal in a typical cat-and-mouse chase story, Trap mostly fulfils its promise of a tight, fun thriller. Unfortunately, though, the veteran director’s typical tropes peek through to hold it back from nailing the landing.
The premise of Trap is everything you’d think from its short and sweet name and more. Cooper Adams, played by Josh Hartnett, takes his teen daughter Riley to a concert by her favourite singer, Lady Raven – portrayed by Shyamalan’s real-life R&B singer daughter, Saleka.
Once Cooper notices the mysteriously tightened security around the event, he learns the whole event is a titular trap by the FBI to catch the serial killer called The Butcher, who is quickly revealed to be Cooper himself.
Using his skills of subterfuge and the cover of his loving dad persona, the murderous father has to find an opportunity to escape a stadium of hundreds of officers without giving himself away.
A thriller shown from the perspective of the killer, Trap would be nothing without the right lead who can balance the dual identities of such a nefarious villain protagonist. Thankfully, Josh Hartnett builds on his recent strong return to Hollywood form by executing both sides almost flawlessly, even with some of the typically wooden Shyamalan movie dialogue dragging him down.
Not only up against an army of FBI agents, but an expert profiler who can anticipate his moves as well, Trap is a fantastic time when Cooper has to utilize his wholesomely devious expertise to manipulate the situation of the crowded concert – all to identify potential chances for freedom and deciding which path to take.
Dragging his daughter around to spot keycards and staff exits under the guise of looking for a cake stand, befriending a stadium employee to learn about the agents’ strategies, and even temporarily disguising himself as a staff, are but a few examples of how watching Cooper narrowly but expertly avoid his hunters with charm and cunning is fun to watch – but also make you root for him.
That in itself is messed up when you stop to think about it, sure. Nevertheless, that’s part of the hidden introspective Trap presents; that is how a killer can literally be anyone and how these villains can easily evade suspicion just with a sprinkle of charisma, ingenuity, and telling people what they want to hear.
This goes one step further in the continuous balancing act Cooper does even with his daughter – played well by Ariel Donoghue for a delightful pairing with Hartnett to convey Cooper’s innocent persona. She has no idea her dad’s got a man chained up in a basement somewhere, but he still needs to get them both out. However, if he acts too irrational or insistent on doing something disguised as an escape plan, she’ll suspect something’s wrong, cause a scene, and draw eyes onto him.
Viewers who’ve seen other switched thriller dramas where the villain plays the protagonist, like the Dexter or Death Note series, will love seeing the repeated parallels of a killer living a double life. On the other hand, even for those for who this concept is entirely new, Trap kicks the premise up one notch further to be totally unique in this tight, condensed space of a packed concert stadium where one wrong move can be game over – like a mouse trapped in a maze.
As Coop’s two sides become increasingly at war with himself and the cracks of his dual identity start to show, the building stakes create a thrill as expected of Trap’s genre up to the second act.
Unfortunately, speaking of cracks, the third act is when Trap quickly falls apart – going on for 30 minutes too long despite the whole runtime being an hour and 45. As the Lady Raven concert comes to its end, without going into spoilers, the film ends up moving away from the stadium to a totally different location, taking us away from the intricate small-scale setting which was what makes Trap interesting.
Then, Lady Raven herself, a singing side character up until now, ends up being front and centre for almost the rest of the story. While there was nothing wrong with Saleka Night Shyamalan’s vocal performances – making for a strong “obligatory concert tracks” playlist – she does not bring even a fraction of the acting talent Hartnett does, making any of her leading scenes feel deflated by comparison.
The salt in the wound to boot is that the FBI profiler, who performed wonderfully in short stints by Hayley Mills, would have been a far more worthy and sensical foe to Hartnett’s Cooper – since, you know, she’s the one who’s been chasing him down for so long.
As one starts to look at the pieces of Saleka being M. Night’s daughter and said director’s father making a movie featuring a pop concert, it’s very easy to imagine the reality of what happened behind the scenes. That is one where a very early version of Trap originally had the FBI profiler take the central role for chasing down Cooper, but said director performed some script shuffling around to make his daughter’s first acting role more of a launching pad for a potential film career.
Even if such speculation is exactly that, it doesn’t change the quality drop of the final product thanks to M. Night’s priority of family over good casting.
Trap is a unique and fun twist on the thriller genre fuelled by a killer lead – for the first hour. Afterwards, as the ideas inspired by the real-life sting operation of the FBI in the mid-80s run out, it seems like Shyamalan simply didn’t know how to fill up the rest of the runtime.
At that point, Trap wears out the novelty of its premise by expanding into a generic thriller ending at the service of a less interesting character amongst the cast. Ultimately, Trap is a good film in most places, but Shyamalan gets in his own way to keep it from being a great film. On the other hand, Josh Hartnett’s magnetic dual-performance constantly keeps some wind in its sails even towards the end.
