A strong, multi-layered performance by Josh Hartnett damn near saves M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller, TRAP. Part Norman Bates with a Hannibal Lecter talent for escapes, Hartnett is fascinating to watch, even when M. Night layers on thicker and deeper layers of eye rolling absurdities.
For decades, Shyamalan has been known for his final act twists, story bends that soon became his trademark. After that well ran bone dry, he moved onto more traditional thrillers, some of which can be pretty effective.
With TRAP, he unleashes the biggest story twist in the trailer, revealing the fact that Hartnett's character Cooper is actually the serial killer knows as "The Butcher".
We meet Cooper on the way to a massive (think Taylor Swift) concert with his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue from "Wolf Like Me"). He's a typical uncool Dad, striving to remain relevant as they drive to the huge event by pop Megastar "Lady Raven", who's played by M. Night's daughter Saleka Shyamalan. OK, I must admit that I'm growing a little tired of the 2024 Shyamalan Take a Daughter to Work Summer. I sat through his daughter Ishana's debut as Writer/Director, "The Watchers" a couple months ago. It was so dull I barely remember anything about it.
I could only picture daughter Saleka saying, "Dad! You let her write and direct a movie! I wanna be a pop star!", at which point M. Night ran off and wrote a thriller centered around a massive concert by a huge pop star so his daughter could write songs, perform them and act as well.
So here's the good news. Saleka's songs are more than passable and she performs them well. M. Night stages the concert full-on, with a packed crowd, a squad of dancers, lighting and massive sets. He's not cutting corners. I SO wanted to bag on the concert scenes, but I was wrong. Pretty good.
The first half of the film takes place at that concert as a massive SWAT and FBI presence surrounds the arena, blocking every exit and tightening a noose around Cooper. They know "The Butcher" is there, and they think they generally know what he looks like.
Hartnett is funny, scary and believable as a sociopath living two different lives, terrified that the two ever touch.
Disney child star Hayley Mills (The Parent Trap, Pollyanna) is brilliantly cast as Dr. Josephine Grant, the FBI profiler honing in on Cooper. She's terrific and it's great to see her on screen again. I could spend three paragraphs on the connections between Mills' dual role in Parent Trap and the similarities to the two conflicting Cooper's inhabiting his psyche.
Jonathan Langdon is hilarious as a merch stand worker who befriends Cooper and tells him way too much about what's going on. If he wasn't so damn likeable in the role, the whole thing would fall apart early on.
NO SPOILERS here on what happens at or after the concert as M. Night has woven a tangled web to get this where it goes.
There were at least three times that I almost said out loud, "That's crap, that could never happen in real life." or "If they rewound security cameras 2 minutes, he's busted!" But every time I almost gave up, Hartnett would pull a terrific scene out of the bag. He is MENACING in the rapid shifts, reminding me of Anthony Perkins in "Psycho" more than once, and that's not faint praise.
The bad news is that Saleka isn't nearly as good an actress as she is a singer/dancer/songwriter. The more that the story relies on her to speak rather than sing, images of wooden performances by Ali MacGraw and Penelope Ann Miller began filling my head.
To be fair, Saleka's nepotism driven casting in a key acting role isn't a disaster on the level of Sofia Coppola in "The Godfather Part III". She seems to loosen up as the film goes on.
But M. Night. Come on, Man. Some of those plot mechanisms to move the story around the venue and eventually outside the venue. Some of the happenings in the final 20 minutes....Night! Hire someone to at least read your scripts and offer a realism check before you film them. There's stretching credibility and then there is butchering it.
TRAP isn't great Shyamalan, but its a serviceable thriller that's NEVER boring. M. Night is also in good humor here, good DARK humor and that's one of his best attributes. Hartnett is flat out terrific. I'll give it a C, a bouncy C......
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