TRAP (2024)

Genre: Thriller
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Josh Hartnett, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Mark Bacolcol, Kid Cudi, Marnie McPhail
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 8 August 2024

Synopsis: A father and teen daughter attend a pop concert, where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.

Movie Review:

The year 2024 is definitely a year for the Shyamalans. M. Night’s younger daughter, Ishana just released her first full-length movie, The Watchers in June. Her elder sister, singer-songwriter Saleka makes her movie debut as a fictional pop star, Lady Raven in her daddy’s latest feature, Trap.

Unless you have been living under a rock or chose not to catch the trailer and walk straight into M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, then you will be probably be surprised by the fact that Josh Hartnett’s character, Cooper is indeed a prolific serial killer within moments of the movie opening.

Cooper aka The Butcher works as a firefighter, has two kids, a loving wife Rachel (Alison Pill) but has the hobby of killing people in his spare time. Today, he is playing the role of a doting father, accompanying her teenage daughter, Ridley to a Lady Raven concert. However, the concert hall is swamped with cops and members of the SWAT team and they are laying a trap for the butcher with the help of FBI profiler, Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills).

Given that senior Shyamalan self-financed his projects nowadays and known for making scary movies with a twist, you expect more from Trap given the amount of creativity freedom involved. You can rest assured that the first half of the movie is rather tense and taut as we follow Cooper around the arena looking for escape routes and also carrying out distractions while at the same time dances to the music with her daughter. To be fair, it’s not just Cooper playing the doting father here apparently M. Night devoted much of the screen time to her real-life daughter as well as her character performs song after song on stage.

Knowing that every corner and exit is guarded by the police, Cooper decides oN a clever or unbelievable way to leave the concert hall. On hindsight, Trap works better in the confined location. It works more than fine in the first half since there are so many elements available for the mental Cooper to indulge in. It’s a gigantic playground for sure but Shyamalan choses to deliver a talky third act that is poorly conceived and less convincing than the earlier setup.

It’s obvious Saleka lacks the acting range to deliver her part and her father’s treatment of the script only make things worse. To talk more about the story as it unfolds will result in spoilers, still Josh Hartnett who is seeing a career revival packs the necessary energy and campiness to portray a mad man with a serious mama issue.

Many will end up comparing Trap to Shyamalan’s wildly popular Spilt. While both can be classify as psychological thrillers, Spilt is more of a masterblend of thriller and horror. Trap sadly is a middling effort that attempts to be clever. The movie is largely enjoyable as seen from the perspective of Cooper. There is a sick urge to see how Cooper escape the police’s clutches but also a desire to see him capture.

It seems evident that Shyamalan is straying away from the so-called “twist” in Trap on purpose although that particular ending shot is highly predictable. We won’t say that Trap is one of Shyamalan’s worst but not one of his best either.

Movie Rating:

(For a Night production that doesn’t involve the supernatural and a twist ending, Trap is enjoyable yet not entirely flawless)

Review by Linus Tee