Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Harnett as Cooper, a father taking his daughter Riley (April Donoghue) to a sold-out concert for her favourite musician Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). But as the concert unfolds with a heavy security presence and a swarm of law enforcement blocking every entrance and exit, Cooper realises it’s all a trap for himself, a mysterious and sadistic serial killer known as the Butcher. They may not know his true identity, but Cooper will still take every chance to escape this ensnarement with his unsuspecting daughter by any means necessary.
The idea for a thriller set inside a concert venue is rather brilliant. You have over twenty thousand people in one building, only a few ways out made available to the public, automatic security, and a timespan of anywhere between 90 minutes to 3 hours. There’s no need for a bomb threat or mass violence in a film like this, because disasters can happen at concerts simply by the sheer number of people moving in a panic. How there hasn’t been a type of Hitchcockian thriller set in a modern day concert like Trap before is baffling.
Trap works brilliantly when we’re at this concert, playing around inside Cooper’s mind, having irreverent and pitch-black fun in seeing how this Hannibal Lecter-type manoeuvres his way around this claustrophobic space, cleverly deceiving anyone in his way rather than resorting to murder and mayhem. Josh Hartnett delivers a delightful tongue-in-cheek performance in this way, making Shyamalan’s infamous dialogue sound like the bizarre workings of a mind feigning stability but slowly disintegrating the more he realises how caged up he is becoming. He’s all smiles and charm and being a dorky Dad figuring out what the latest “lingo” is, feigning interest for his daughter’s musical love, but hides some powerful monstrosity that we only get careful tastes of. Josh Hartnett’s return to a lead role is fantastic and welcome, giving us a duplicitous character that is as dark as he is fun, his pleasure in escaping makes us happy somehow, which is a testament to how well-crafted the Lady Raven concert setting is.
SPOILER ALERT!
And that’s where the problems arise. Only about two-thirds of Trap are set at the concert, and then Cooper and his daughter leave with Lady Raven in tow, Cooper now blackmailing the popstar into helping him get away scot-free. You could still be on board for where the story develops, but at every turn Shyamalan descends into haphazard scribbles of plot points and expository dialogue, all with dodgy editing that pales in comparison to how snare-drum tight everything was beforehand. Even Hartnett’s performance starts to twist into something far more camp and less insidious, his madness far exceeding his method, until we’re not too sure this serial killer is even that much of a threat.
The film’s final confrontation between Cooper and his now in-shock wife Rachel (Alison Pill) carries some weight thanks to both actors performances, embodying much of the transposing themes of marital suspicion and how well one can truly know their partner. This all feels like desperate last-minute attempts at resonance, an aspect of Shyamalan’s career that has plagued even his most well-intentioned efforts like The Village, Old and Knock at the Cabin. Josh Hartnett keeps it all buoyant, playing this psychopath ripped straight from an airport novel, and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s celluloid cinematography is excellent. Some may be on board for the bumpy ride by the end, but seeing as the concert setting was where it all worked the best, perhaps Trap should have stayed IN the trap.
Trap is in cinemas now
