Trap (2024)
M. Night Shyamalan's new thriller Trap
is a mostly engaging film that stumbles at its conclusion.
Josh Hartnett plays Cooper, a seemingly
good dad bringing his tween daughter (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert for pop
superstar Lady Raven (Saluki Shyamalan). However, there is a substantial police
presence at the concert because authorities have reason to believe a serial
killer called The Butcher is at the concert. Viewers quickly learn Cooper is
The Butcher.
Cooper then has to try to find a way to
escape the arena undetected without his daughter becoming too suspicious. It's
no fun revealing more than that. Props to the film's marketing team for
creating a trailer featuring only scenes from the first 30-45 minutes or so in
an era where so many trailers reveal too much.
Hartnett does a good job in the lead,
hitting the right note of coming across as friendly but also a little bit off.
Shyamalan also remains a strong visual artist. Even his worst films still
looked good and Trap does as well. In an era where so many movies are so
predictable, I watched much of Trap while being unsure exactly where it
was headed.
But while Trap runs just 105
minutes, it should be 15-20 minutes shorter. It reaches what would have been a
strong endpoint and then keeps going. Unfortunately, those final 15 minutes
feature a significant plot hole and multiple bits relying on several characters
all not noticing stuff people would almost certainly notice in those
situations. I rolled my eyes a bit during the final scene.
So Trap ends up being one of
those movies that points out the limitations in the star rating system. There
was a lot I liked about the movie, but the final 15 minutes bugged me. It sits
right at the two-and-a-half and three-star border. The stick-in-the-mud side of
me is saying, "No, not three stars!" but I am going to err on the side of
generosity because Shyamalan, whatever his flaws, is still trying to make
original thrillers in an era of reboots and sequels and is still trying to
carry on the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock. I sincerely appreciate the effort, but
I can also understand if others find the implausibility a bit too much.
