Trap (2024)

Score: 2 / 5

Young, hot dad Cooper takes his teen daughter Riley to a concert as a reward for her good grades: Lady Raven, Riley's favorite pop singer. The rambunctious crowd and enthusiastic fans can't help but notice the tension and unusually strong police force surrounding the venue and pointedly scrutinizing adult men. Cooper seems especially wary when SWAT teams descend on the arena, and he takes it upon himself to learn more. One merch vendor spills his beans: the authorities were tipped that local serial killer "The Butcher" would be attending Lady Raven's concert today, and they are determined to catch him before he kills again. Cooper is that very wanted man, and he will stop at nothing to escape this trap.

It's a bizarre premise, but one with plenty of room for a fun, twisty thriller with bits of action and drama plopped in. In short: a seemingly typical outing for writer, producer, and director M. Night Shyamalan, who also makes his expected cameo appearance. Apart from these, though -- and the notable casting of his daughter Saleka as Lady Raven herself, performing her own music -- this film feels nothing like a Shyamalan film. His usual penchant for spiritual or existential themes is absent, replaced by a thickly plotted film that feels more mechanical than artistic. Long, slow takes that forced attention on riveting performances that marked his early films has been replaced by faster, more fluid takes dripping with gimmickry and atmosphere.

Which is not to say there aren't some really solid elements to this feature, ones that will surely endear some audiences. Josh Hartnett plays Cooper, and it's his best performance in years, craftily straddling the line between sociopath and doting father as the camera often focuses squarely on his face in severe close-up as he calculates his odds and exactly what he'll do to the meddlesome FBI agents in his way. He more than carries the film, and it's better for his involvement. Similarly, Saleka Night Shyamalan wowed me with her vocals and style before she completely floored me in the film's climax, when she steps off the concert stage and takes the reins of the movie, featured in the entire surprise final act. Her acting chops were unexpected and, while perhaps simple, effective in conveying the complexities of a pop star who is much more than the persona she has fashioned for her fans.

But Shyamalan (the director) seems to be of two very different minds when it comes to this material. Its initial setup and most of the story is set in the concert arena, and while I didn't care for the lack of artistry behind the scenes, it's a fairly enjoyable ride. His use of Hitchcockian tension and suspense is highly entertaining, as we become aware of Cooper's secret identity and follow closely in his steps as he discovers the mechanics of the titular trap about to spring on himself. His cat-and-mouse with the head FBI profiler on his trail -- Hayley Mills having a grand ol' time -- and the roller coaster of "what will they think of next" considerations is the makings of consistently fun storytelling. But then Shyamalan breaks his whole conceit in the final act, moving the action out of the arena and into Cooper's home, and things derail quickly. The tables are reversed on Cooper, and his potential unmasking to his family becomes less exciting and more dreadful, as we've come to quite like the evil man. Concurrently, his family is painted as blithely unaware and awkwardly silly, headed by an almost unwatchable Alison Pill as his wife. Her garish grimaces and wide-eyed suburban act are indeed put-on, to be fair to her, but that final reveal -- the "Shyamalan twist," if you will -- elicited a pained groan from me and others in the audience rather than any kind of shock or intrigue.

And it doesn't help that he wastes so much time on Saleka's concert performance, either. If he wanted to make a concert movie about her music, he should have simply done so. Here, instead, it's shoehorned in with so much focus that the rest of the plot wobbles dangerously for most of the mercifully brief runtime. Some potentially fascinating logistical puzzles about the concert arena, its security, and its patrons are sacrificed in favor of what we might call the glamour of the show itself, resulting in a thriller with disappointingly few thrills. Similarly, while any character development for Cooper is unnecessary (he is a serial killer, after all, and apart from wanting to keep it secret from his family, he doesn't suddenly change his motivations or goals), the screenplay is ruinous when it comes to his family, who deserve a lot more time to suspect him, perhaps, or at least to react to his unmasking in the final act. Instead, we're only allowed to listen as they scream at each other from behind a closed bathroom door, and we get no fallout from any of them except Pill, whose monologue is more annoying than enlightening. And after starring in so much of the film, Ariel Donoghue as Riley is all but ignored in the denouement, hugging her beloved father as he's incarcerated and then standing dumbly aside. We spent so much time with her, and we don't even get to see her coping with this personal apocalypse?

And, finally, the film opens up the possibility of a sequel, and while I actually don't mind that in this kind of film, it seems to undermine everything that has come before. Cooper isn't the smartest man in the room, though films like this usually make the killer multiple steps ahead of everyone else. Not the Butcher, who seems to relish the challenges placed in front of him by the FBI and SWAT teams. He has to work around them at every turn, helped by an alarming amount of luck along the way. At so many points he could -- and should -- have been discovered, and it's only the contrivances of an overworked, under-workshopped screenplay that allow him to continue advancing. So when, in the final moments, he's able to ingeniously and impossibly free himself from captivity, it reads as perhaps the most unbelievable, unearned moment in a story literally filled with unlikelihoods and impossibilities. When the only reason a plot device or advancement works is so the story itself can continue -- while not being true to theme, character, or the internal logic of the world of the film -- that should raise a big red flag for any audience that doesn't want their intelligence to be insulted.