Leave it to writer/director M. Night Shyamalan to make a Taylor Swift-like concert that feels large in scale and as if the walls are simultaneously closing in for one particular character simultaneously. In his 16th feature film, ‘Trap,’ the premise is relatively simple, but finds a way to keep you engaged in this cat-and-mouse game. It asks whether we know what people are up to behind their grins and quick-witted rebuttals — it’s entertaining to watch and figure out at least for a big chunk of the film before it gets to its crescendo. In this story, the big pop star of the moment, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), is in town, luckily playing an afternoon show before another big sold-out show that evening. Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett), a firefighter, is up for a Father of the Year award as he can get two tickets for himself and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue). At first, everything is normal. Riley wants to look at Lady Raven leaving her tour bus to wave at her as super fans do.
As they get to their seats, Cooper tries to do the dad thing and learn(and fail) at learning young people’s lingo. Everything feels fine as the crowd anticipates the main act, but something is irritating Cooper. He notices a considerable amount of police presence throughout the stadium—even pulling people to the side for questioning. But why should Cooper care? If anything, a father should feel more comfortable. Well, it just so happens that Cooper has a secret under the funny and cringe usages of the term jelly. He’s a serial killer named The Butcher, who has claimed 12 victims in a rather brutal fashion.
TRAP / Photo Credit: Warner Bros Pictures
How is Cooper going to manage to Houdini out of this one? There are cops at every exit with squads of FBI task forces at every weak point, not to mention his daughter thoroughly enjoying her long-awaited concert. Shyamalan’s confidence in this premise stands out and is placed in Hartnett’s capable hands to maximize it. As it feels like the walls are caving in, Harnett uses facial expressions and quick fixes of stress to display that within Cooper’s demeanor. On the outside, Cooper’s character is also a charmer, able to pivot to saying the right things to get what he wants. There are some lucky breaks here and there. For instance, in being nice to a highly unbeknownst merch worker, Jamie (Jonathan Langdon), Cooper gets the lowdown on the sting operation set up to catch him. From there, it’s witnessing all these clever ways his character gets along as the stakes get higher with bolder actions to follow.
TRAP / Photo Credit: Warner Bros Pictures
You almost have to sit back and wonder why all these stars align for this horrible character to get to his escape. Nevertheless, it’s thrilling to see. ‘Trap’ boasts a naturalistic experience of a concert where cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom plays with a point of view as if you’re in the seats themselves. Shyamalan adds an extra element of forces working against Cooper in serial killer profiler extraordinaire Dr. Grant (Hayley Mills). She knows his playbook, but the actual conflict is the war between Cooper and his alter ego. He’s a psychopath, but within that, Cooper wants to be a great father without each of the sides intertwining. If the pressure cooker of the eventual end of the concert wasn’t enough, there’s a race against time for Cooper’s secret to be uncovered by the person he wants to be a hero to. All of this occurs within a full-fledged background of musical numbers composed by Shyamalan’s real-life daughter, Saleka.
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As fun and absurdly immersive as ‘Trap’ is, it falters as it tries to wrap up its central thesis. Cooper is indeed a family man, and his wife Rachel (Alison Pill) is fully bought into their perfect suburban life. In the few times, Cooper lets his guard down. An incident causes this facade to unravel thread by thread. The idea of the faces people put on to shield the horrible part of themselves from the word is telegraphed through dialogue and subtext. There isn’t a drop of blood spilled in ‘Trap,’ but Hartnett’s metallic coldness gives the audience enough heads up. When the film tries to overexplain his character and then infuse the final confrontation with a bunch of realizations we can infer already; the ride starts to get shaky.
Maybe you’ll pay more attention if the person seated next to you at the “Guts World Tour” nervously looks around. Shyamalan uses this enclosed setting to peel back the layers of all the creative ways a horrible person would get out of a sing-a-long jam. While ‘Trap’ overvalues its exclamation point, it makes up for being a good time.
Main Photo Credit: Warner Bros Pictures
