Somewhere along the way, M. Night Shyamalan went from a classy, “elevated horror” auteur — “The Next Spielberg,” Newsweek called him in 2002 — to a purveyor of cheap thrills. It was the best thing that ever happened to him. Trap follows in the footsteps of the schlockier work he’s made in the last decade, beginning with the self-funded found footage thriller The Visit. The film’s story is tightly wound around a dopey premise, but it’s also buoyed by incredible heart and soul, and seldom slows down while twisting every possible screw. In short, it’s an absolute blast.
Set largely at a pop concert, and featuring narrative zig-zags that stretch incredulity, it’s easy to see how Trap might lose viewers eager to nitpick plot holes and logistics. However, that would be missing the forest for the trees. At the movie’s core is a surprisingly layered story of parenthood, which is entirely in service of the kind of thrilling goofiness Shyamalan brought to 2021’s Old — a movie whose visual and narrative framing is similarly (and intentionally) off-kilter while remaining utterly committed to sincere melodrama.
Josh Hartnett compares his new role in ‘Trap’ to his character Zeke from ‘The Faculty’
Trap is wonderfully good. It might even be great. And if it’s not attuned to your sensibilities, chances are, you’ll have a hoot of a time regardless.
What is Trap about?
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Man, what isn’t Trap about?
In the broadest possible strokes: it’s about a well-to-do Philadelphia firefighter, Cooper (Josh Hartnett), who takes his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a show by her favorite popstar, only to discover that the concert is also a trap to capture him — as it turns out, he’s secretly a notorious serial killer known as The Butcher.
That’s all you really need to know going in, though the film is surprisingly spoiler-proof. Long gone are the days when even Shyamalan’s most prestigious works hinged on major reveals — such has been his reputation, even though it’s only really happened in three or four of his 16 features — because he’s proven much more adept at telling stories with numerous, cascading twists and turns. But perhaps the biggest twist in Trap is that it’s a thoughtful father-daughter story at its core.
Trap is a film about ‘girl dads’
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
As much as its plot concerns Cooper discovering the scale of this police operation, and wriggling through whatever cracks he can find, the reason it feels urgent — and why he can’t simply go on the run — is that he truly, deeply cares about Riley. She’s been having a tough time at school with bullies and seeing the spark in her eye as she sings and dances means the universe to him. As much as Cooper might want to find a way out of the labyrinthine concert venue, he doesn’t want to arouse her suspicions, and he needs to make sure she has a good time too.
Which is to say: if the premise didn’t seem loopy enough from the trailers, it’s also a girl-dad movie in saccharine, sentimental ways. After all, the pop singer at its center, Lady Raven, happens to be played by R&B artist Saleka (Shyamalan’s daughter), who features heavily on screen (not to be confused with his other daughter, Ishana, who directed The Watchers this year). Trap is practically an ode to his daughters and their teenage years, though it also wrestles with some of the darker implications of fatherhood. It plays, at times, like a confrontation of what it means for a daughter to challenge a man’s view of the world, and of himself.
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