TRAP is not only that style of rap where the beat sounds like a rattlesnake, it’s also the new M. Night Shyamalan joint, or “A NEW M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN EXPERIENCE,” as the poster puts it. It’s not one of his experiences that’s based around a big surprise, so don’t worry about that, but if by chance you don’t know the premise and would enjoy a silly thriller starring Boy Sweat Dave himself, Josh Hartnett, as a dorky dad taking his daughter to a concert, I recommend going in blind.
The rest of you may have seen the trailer, which gives us the first act reveal that Mr. Hartnett is here to finally fulfill his destiny as the dark-eyed nephew of Michael Myers (H20 timeline). As far as his kid Riley (Ariel Donoghue, BLUEBACK) knows he’s just Dad, Cooper Adams, who’s kind of embarrassing but she loves him and not just because he got her really good floor tickets to see her favorite singer Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan) to reward her for good grades. What she does not know is that he’s also the infamous serial killer known as The Butcher. And when he goes to the restroom he pulls out his phone to check the live feed of the guy he has chained up in a basement (Mark Bacolcol).
Cooper has noticed that something’s up in the arena. So many cops, so many security guards, lines of them at every exit, inside and out. And he sees them approaching some other dad at his seat and leading him away. That gives him some relief, until he notices it happening again. They’re looking for somebody. And to be fair it would be pretty reasonable to be looking for him.
So Cooper ingratiates himself to a guy working the merch table (Jonathan Langdon, CROSSWORD MYSTERIES: A PUZZLE TO DIE FOR) and gets him to blab about secret information. “The FBI or whatever” found evidence that The Butcher bought tickets to the concert, and they’ve set a trap for him. They’re profiling all the men inside and not letting anyone leave. The only way out is through backstage.
That’s the set up. And we get a little bit of an evil DIE HARD, where instead of one good guy sneaking around it’s one bad guy, stealing a security badge, a walkie talkie, testing ways to escape, trying to figure out if there’s a way to get backstage. And just by the power of cinema you get wrapped up in the problem solving, as if you’re on his side. But also it’s the dark comedy of how awkwardly he has to lie to Riley and others to cover up what he’s trying do do and why he’s acting so weird. Like the part where he suggests to his daughter that it would be cool to climb into a trap door that a guest rapper rose out of.
There’s a long list of things in this movie that make no sense. Not just the ludicrousness of the whole arena-concert-where-no-one-is-allowed-to-leave concept, but little details about everything from how the merch table operates to whether or not concerts have numerous long breaks between songs to reset the stage (in my experience they do not). You just have to go with it. This is Shyamalan World, where kids can see dead people, psychological conditions can transform your physical body, and adult men can suddenly realize they’ve never been sick or had a cold. Everything is gonna be a little off.
You have to appreciate, or at least accept, that if it’s gonna make Shyamalan laugh or smile that’s a good enough reason to put it in there. A subplot about Riley having trouble with some other girls at school causes annoyances for Cooper, as the other girls are there and one of their moms (Marnie McPhail, The Edison Twins) keeps trying to talk to him about it, but mainly seems to be there to set up one really funny reaction shot. Let me give you another example. From a distance we see glimpses of the mastermind of this whole operation, the genius profiler Dr. Josephine Grant. Who is played by Hayley Mills. Star of THE PARENT TRAP. You see? It’s beautiful. I mean, she’s good casting for the role anyway but you can’t tell me that wasn’t the reason he wanted her. And I respect it.
Some people think it’s funny that Shyamalan cast his daughter as a superstar pop diva. Obviously she has a music career, but if I’m not mistaken is not filling arenas yet. She wrote all the songs, performs them with backup dancers and other theatrics, not to mention an adoring crowd, so this is a great gift from a dad. The thing is, though, I’m old. If I didn’t see the last name, I definitely would’ve assumed she was some famous pop star. She works. In fact, she seems much more believable than the actual famous musician Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi (X, SILENT NIGHT), wearing a long blond wig and doing a gay stereotype as her bitchy mentor/guest performer. But I did think it was funny a singer/rapper/whatever would name himself “The Thinker” and everyone would be used to it and okay calling him that. That I do buy. They do shit like that.
There was a point in TRAP when I thought it was nearing the end without having gone much beyond what we extrapolated from the trailer. For sure if I had gone in blind I would’ve been much more impressed. Luckily, there’s a whole bunch of movie left when he finds his way out of the arena. So here come two SPOILER PARAGRAPHS about that.
SPOILER PARAGRAPH #1: Up to this point it has been an anti-hero movie, no real protagonist. And I like that. But it becomes much more exciting when Shyamalan shifts into a different mode. Cooper basically figures out a way to escape by taking Lady Raven hostage, with her playing along that she’s meeting her fan Riley and bringing them to their car in her limo. Suddenly this character who has only been performing as a musician becomes the protagonist, trying to outsmart The Butcher. She takes advantage of the presence of his family to keep him under control, and makes a bunch of smart moves, causing him to lose his shit. A chess game between a diva and a killer.
SPOILER PARAGRAPH #2: And there’s another section of the movie where his wife Rachel (Alison Pill, VICE) becomes the protagonist. One of the things she does to get one over on him is such an obvious trick it’s embarrassing that he falls for it, but otherwise I like it. I’ve seen many comparisons to Hitchcock, and it does remind me of the structure of PSYCHO, the way it tricks you into becoming invested in his goal of escape, then switches you to identify with the people trying to stop him. I’m a sucker for this approach to movies or books, where there are distinct sections, like chapters, that change the perspective of main character, and I think it’s effective here.
So, I think TRAP is a fun, stupid goof. But the best part of the movie is that it’s a great role for Hartnett. I know I’m not the only one who appreciates what he’s been up to lately, but here is his most fun, layered and central role of late. Or of his career? We remember him as a late ‘90s hearthrob, something he rebelled against slightly – I’ve noted before how in H20 he purposely mussed up his hair between takes, and for THE FACULTY he went to the more extreme measure of having a ridiculous hair cut. Teen idol self sabotage. He could never shed his handsome boy aura (even when gaining weight for OPPENHEIMER), but here he has enough traces of dork to play as the PTA’s hunkiest dad. It helps that he drives a hatchback and doesn’t wear a cool guy leather jacket like, say, Tom Cruise in WAR OF THE WORLDS.
Cooper says he has two lives that “don’t touch” – the loving dad and the sadistic psycho. So the fun part is when he gets desperate to hide Psycho Cooper and starts laying Dad Cooper on a little too thick, with too big of a smile, too nice of a tone, too corny in what he says, an “act as if” approach that knows it’s easier for people to go along with a bad lie than face a horrifying truth. A comparison could be made to Terry O’Quinn in THE STEPFATHER – Hartnett’s performance is funnier, but still pretty creepy. The difference between the characters is that the Stepfather becomes an abusive asshole when things don’t go how he wants them, while Cooper is an evil bastard who at least is really nice to his daughter. (Some see an autobiographical metaphor here about being a director, but that seems kinda fucked up to me to compare him to a guy who kidnaps people, torments them and chops them up, so I won’t speculate.) That Riley hugs her dad after she knows, before the police take him, had me thinking. It’s an interesting thing to put at the end. But maybe she just had to give it up to him for helping her meet Lady Raven.
Shyamalan has made better crafted and more thoughtful movies than TRAP, for sure. But this is a movie an experience nobody else would’ve thought of, would’ve made, would’ve made quite this way, would’ve had a daughter to play the singer in. If there’s something only you can contribute to the world, and you do it, good for you! Thank you M. Night.
* * *
SPOILERY POST-SCRIPTS
1. I like that Lady Raven rescues that poor guy over her phone but then goes there and hugs him and you know he must be just realizing that he was rescued by a superstar and wondering what the fuck is going on. Maybe he even noticed it sounded like her voice before but thought “Nah…“
2. At the end, especially when they tased him instead of shooting him, I was somewhat convinced it was gonna connect to the UNBREAKABLE/SPLIT/GLASS universe, but also I knew it wouldn’t be as exciting when we saw it coming. So Night made the right decision.
August 6th, 2024 at 8:18 am
Just yesterday I discovered that Hayley Mills has a part in this film as the woman trying to Trap Josh Hartnett, and I can’t stop laughing at it. This is truly the ultimate dad joke. But what makes it so perfect is that casting Mills as an FBI agent hunting a serial killer sounds cool all on its own.