Trap

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Trap follows Cooper, your typical family man suburban Dad who takes his daughter to a concert of her favourite artist, Lady Raven. However, almost immediately things feel off as the concert is steadily revealed to be a trap for the notorious serial killer: The Butcher.

I have to say the first act of this film is M. Night Shyamalan at his absolute best, the set-up is sweet and you genuinely enjoy the father/daughter bond on display. This feels like a very everyday situation, a father chaperoning his child to a big event and as an audience we're led in nicely. At the same time, a concert is a unique setting for a film, and it's where the action happens for half of the plot, so all the unique qualities of being placed in this pop star adrenaline-fuelled venue really gets to be explored. Even watching all the slight odd points as Cooper realises the extent of police presence and then later the trap itself is a nice way to introduce the storyline.

M. Night Shyamalan has a fun camera style at play here that works quite well for his film. The whole thing is pushed to the max with these unsettling close ups. Long hanging moments where you are held in place by the range of subtle facial expressions and long intense stares lends a very disarming quality to the whole thing. The soundtrack to the film is also quite good, M. Night's daughter Saleka performs as the headlining pop star throughout and it places you in the setting remarkably well.

Ariel Donoghue, who played Riley, really feels like this young girl who is entirely caught up in the concert thrill; I loved the genuine connection built up between her and Hartnett. Jonathan Langdon, who played Jamie, is a bit of a sleeper hit for this film; Langdon is incredibly funny and lends a levity the film really benefits from. 

However, the best performance came from Josh Hartnett, who played Cooper. This is the real triumph of the film I kinda feel; Hartnett has been playing roles that haven't really been commanding of his full range for a while now. But this was a very impressive protagonist role in which he got to lead well. His turn as the charismatic Dad who only wants the best for his daughter is the sort of thing that wins us over while we wait for the turn. Even the bits where it feels like he's just casually wearing this persona to get ahead makes for some hilarious scenes. Yet when he is finally allowed to drop the mask, when the desperation breaks him you get to see Hartnett go entirely unhinged. His turn at being cold and calculating, but also rageful and vengeful is extremely well realised. Trap might not be the best film ever but it shows how well Hartnett can do with a dull script.

The thing this film cannot escape is that it is made by M. Night Shyamalan and I wish that didn't necessarily mean a bad thing. As a director he tends to land on these films that are built to ultimately surprise you, but the twist is kind of baked into this one: we know Cooper is the bad guy trying not to get caught while maintaining his good guy Dad persona. While I loved the first act we wandered into some strange side characters that really lead to conversations and moments that have no weight on anything at all. The entire second half fails in which Cooper's world unravels and we get strange apparitions of his mother, a pretty poor OCD representation and the longest and dullest cat and mouse sequence of the year. The worst part of Trap is how paper thin the nepotism at the heart of it all is. M. Night pushes his daughter as this pop star character into frame, which works when she's functioning in that role. But suddenly she is fed more and more screen time as things progress, including a pretty rough Instagram Live scene that felt poorly scripted. The whole film felt distracted and like it was more predominantly motivated to promote Saleka and not the story it was trying to tell.

Saleka Shyamalan, who played Lady Raven, might have had a good singing voice but she couldn't act to save herself; Shyamalan really struggled her way through dialogue intensive scenes. Alison Pill, who played Rachel, felt like a pretty stereotypical suburban housewife role with little for pill to engage with; I was especially disappointed by the complete lack of chemistry between her and Hartnett. Hayley Mills, who played Dr. Josephine Grant, looked like a strong breeze would knock her down; Mills certainly didn't feel like she had the presence of an FBI psychiatric external aide. Marnie McPhail, who played Jody's Mum, is weirdly intense from the go; McPhail just tries to hard to push herself into a scene and it feels a bit forced.

I actually am tired of these M. Night Shyamalan movies being so poorly written, cast and directed. I would give Trap a 4/10.