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 Long, slow takes that forced attention on riveting performances that marked his early films has been replaced by faster, more fluid takes dripping with gimmickry and atmosphere.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.

Oppenheimer (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The American Prometheus, referring of course to the mythic titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, is J. Robert Oppenheimer, the infamous physicist who developed the atomic bomb. This title isn't just about his invention or its valuable and dangerous fallout (so to speak); it also refers to his politically and existentially tortured life afterward. Christopher Nolan's newest film, for him unusual as a biopic, is a cerebral character study of one of the most interesting and consequential figures in human history. Taking place over three hours we're treated to a dual storyline, again one of Nolan's trademarks, here emphasizing two very different ways to destroy the world.

The first plotline, filmed in color, is subtitled "Fission," referring to the splitting of an atom's nucleus (and the means by which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed). It dramatizes Oppenheimer's life on his way to his "great deed," from his times in various European universities to his PhD in the '20s and '30s, from his dabblings in communism to his marriage to Kitty (Emily Blunt) and his affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), and of course his appointment to lead the top secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, circa 1942. It's the lead up to this last that makes up the driving force of the film, as even the score indicates a ticking clock toward doomsday. When General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) verifies that Oppenheimer is not, in fact, communist, he's put in charge of the race to beat the Nazis in creating the first atomic bomb. The race is personal for Oppenheimer, who was Jewish, and he has fears of what Heisenberg may be developing; contracting his own scientists, he moves them and their families to a secret location with their families, building a town around them to keep everything close and tight-lipped.

Filmed in IMAX by the magnificent Hoyte van Hoytema, the location of this town is beautifully constructed against the beautiful scenery of New Mexico's deserts. It's a bit chilling, too, knowing what will happen to parts of the world in the wake of atomic disasters. The filmmakers here seem intent on impressing that contrast to the audience, often interjecting images of curling flames, flying debris, and sparkling explosions between images of Oppenheimer's intense, tortured face. His life, as brought to award-worthy performance by Cillian Murphy, seems a similarly tortured landscape, occasionally flaring with personal faults of impulsive pride and lustful greed. He's a Greek tragic hero, often dissociating from the hullabaloo of his life to think about his own fantasies of physics, sex, and impending doom. One wonders what it would be like to change the course of world history by creating the thing that could annihilate us all; Murphy delivers that.

The second plotline, in black and white, is subtitled "Fusion," a process by which two nuclei are combined and releases far more catastrophic energy than fission. This part of the film doesn't make as much sense for a while, as we follow Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) trying to get approved by the Senate as commerce secretary in the '50s. He's being held up and though he doesn't know why, he strongly suspects it's due to the influence of his old rival, Oppenheimer. The physicist, haunted by the hell of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, had urged President Truman (Gary Oldman) to restrict increased nuclear weapon development, which Truman dismissed as weak. We learn, through flashbacks (if that word is even applicable amidst all the time jumps here), that as an advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission headed by Strauss, Oppenheimer advocated against additional nuclear research that would lead to the creation of a hydrogen bomb. Strauss resented Oppenheimer for this and other perceived slights, and so proceeded to assassinate Oppenheimer's reputation and credibility during the latter's security hearing in 1954, resulting in neutralizing his influence on security as well as policy. The McCarthy-era fervor is brought to full flavor in these scenes, though thankfully Strauss gets his comeuppance eventually, primarily at the hands of testifier David Hill (Rami Malek), who publicly reveals the personal grudge match.

It's a fascinating way to frame the title character's life, and one that remarkably humanizes both the character and the director, Nolan being a prime case of director who notoriously leeches his films of sentiment or "humanity." This is his Amadeus, if you will, in which "great" men collapse under the weight of their own prides, jealousies, and pettiness. Add in, if you will, other personal faults hinted at but never really fleshed out by the film, including his adultery and Kitty's suffering and alcoholism, and Nolan is really going for gold here; that said, this film only strengthened my annoyance that Nolan is incapable of writing well-rounded female characters or of directing female actors (Pugh and Blunt are among the best, and they are wildly unsupported here in garishly archetypal roles that only use their bodies and emotions to function). It's a shame, because Kitty has a few lines that reveal her sharply tactical sense of logic, and some of Oppenheimer's worst choices would have been avoided had he listened.

On a similarly personal note, I found it dismaying that the film callously avoids direct reckoning with the bombings that effectively ended World War II. The arguments for and against the use of those bombs are voiced, briefly, but little to no consideration of the historical reality of those arguments is provided. Was Japan too determined to quit, or were they on their knees at that point in the conflict? The film espouses neither perspective, choosing instead a maddeningly cryptic approach that makes us, like Oppenheimer, get a bit paranoid. Leave it to Nolan to give us a puzzle box rather than a coherent story. It's this that, while feeling very much like the filmmaker, reminded me of several other auteurs; I've never considered Nolan as anything but himself, but this film repeatedly reminded me of Terrence Malick (especially in editorial style), Oliver Stone (especially in the hearing scenes, and with Oldman, Blunt, and Downey's almost camp performances), and of course Stanley Kubrick in its bleak sense of humor (a la Dr. Strangelove and when, notably, government officials debate over which Japanese cities to bomb). 

Like it or not, enjoy it or not, this is a masterful and galvanizing film, one that perhaps best exemplifies the best (and worst) tendencies of its profoundly complex creator. Never has Nolan so seemingly identified with his own subject, and never has his own theoretical interests meshed so flawlessly with those of the story he tells. Some of the best critical writing this year will be about this film, how its relentless editing matches some obscure physicist's understanding of human psyche, radiation fallout, or cosmic structure. Because ultimately that's the puzzling game Nolan plays, and frankly I don't much care for that level of masturbatory cleverness. What I love about this movie is its old-school approach to acting and melodrama, its deep understanding of the boundaries between personal and collective identity (and trauma), and its respect for the audience, along with its characters, to decide for ourselves the significance of these potentially world-shattering events and, worse, ideas.