Trap review.
Shyamalan’s latest tries some new tricks…but still ends up stuck in some familiar ruts.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Trap
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Written by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Kid Cudi, Tim Russ, Jonathan Langdon and Saleka Shyamalan
Trap Review
M. Night Shyamalan’s excellent breakthrough feature The Sixth Sense is turning 25 next week. We’ll have plenty more to say about it when the anniversary arrives…but it’s always worth looking back at one of our more interesting filmmakers whenever a new movie drops. The Sixth Sense made Shyamalan a star. Unbreakable and Signs were big deals upon release. His films became events. Then they became a joke. There was a full decade where everything Shyamalan touched turned to whatever the opposite of gold is. At least…creatively. It took the box office longer to catch up.
The Shyamalan twist became a running joke. Every new trailer was greeted with comical guesses as to what this movie’s big twist would be. Things started to head downhill when everyone’s joking guess at his twist for The Village turned out to be accurate. To his credit, Shyamalan hasn’t relied on twists as much as he is accused of. The problem is that with or without them…the man hit a cold spell. The Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender, After Earth…it was a dark period.
Things have turned around in the last decade. The back-to-back releases of The Visit and Split rekindled some of the love affair the public had with early Shyamalan films. The follow up was a bit rockier. He didn’t stick the landing on his Unbreakable/Split/Glass trilogy…and Old came and went without leaving much of a mark. Last year’s Knock at the Cabin fared better with critics despite some terrible marketing that spoiled the most important piece of information in the story. Now we have Trap. A movie that does not rely on the Shyamalan twist…and, for a time, picks up the usual pace that his movies are known for.
Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite musician in concert. Daddy-daughter day hits a snag when the building is engulfed by law enforcement looking for a local serial killer called “The Butcher”. Cooper is, as the trailers tell us, the man they are looking for. He must find a way out of the trap without alerting his daughter to his second life.
The first two acts of Trap take place at the concert. Cooper works in secret to stay one step ahead of the law. This is, quite easily, the highlight of Trap. It doesn’t come without issue, however. The entire time Cooper is navigating his cat and mouse situation…we have no idea what we are rooting for. He’s the bad guy. As fun as watching him outsmart everyone from security to the FBI may be…it’s never clear what endgame Trap wants for us. Hartnett does great work as the calm, determined psychopath desperate for escape and continued anonymity. Which makes him easy to root for. If that’s what we’re supposed to do.
There is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. At times, Trap can feel like it is exactly that for the people watching it. Shyamalan essentially locks viewers into an extended concert to watch his daughter perform. This is a full-on show with lavish production, original music, and special guest stars. Saleka Shyamalan (known professionally simply as Saleka) isn’t the problem here. She pulls off invented pop star Lady Raven just fine. It just feels odd at times. Like this is a secret vehicle for a completely different project than advertised. Unfortunately, it gets worse.
There are a few moments during Cooper’s escape attempts where you have to accept that an entire sting operation searching for a man fitting Cooper’s description is full of the dumbest law enforcement in the world. He maneuvers around them as if they aren’t even there. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief to accept some of the things Cooper pulls off right in front of police whose only job is to find this man in front of them. And it gets much worse in Trap’s third act.
Lady Raven goes from pop star to protagonist in the final act of Trap. She makes unbelievable choices that are too much to accept from an international celebrity who just sold out an arena. It becomes ridiculous. We won’t get into how absurd Trap becomes…but there is a long time spent with your eyes firmly rolled into the back of your head. Which leads to Trap’s biggest problem. The third act of the movie is interminably long. After eschewing his usual slow pacing during the concert setting…Shyamalan meanders around for what feels like forever when the action moves elsewhere.
Pacing has long been an issue with Shyamalan’s lower tier work. Trap falls into the…well…you know. Hartnett does what he can. The story shifts to something completely different…which would be a neat trick had it shifted to something better. Instead, a somewhat fun game of large-scale cat and mouse devolves into an overdrawn-out mess with few ideas and even less tension. Maybe it could have used that twist.
Scare Value
The more that Trap finds a direction the less entertaining it becomes. As a public cat and mouse thriller…there are some fine moments. Moments that force you to accept some very stupid characters…but fine nonetheless. Watching Hartnett’s character stay a step ahead of everyone is where the fun lies in Trap. Eventually the story becomes far too bloated with nonsense while also managing to feel tedious and drawn out. The latter of which has plagued many of Shyamalan’s worst works.
2/5
Trap Link
In theaters now – Fandango
