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| All images courtesy of Warner Brothers |
M. Night Shyamalan's newest film, Trap (2024), encapsulates all of the strengths and weaknesses of the past ten years of his filmography, a decade spent mostly self-funding his projects to varying degrees of success. He has been trapped himself, typecast as "the twist guy" due to a large number of his earlier works revolving around having a surprising plot twist in the third act. He has mostly moved past that as a director, making straightforward thrillers with eccentric detailing or high concepts. While Trap doesn't rely on the plot taking a hard left turn for shock value, it does keep the audience on their toes with the path it takes in its narrative.
The film opens with doting father Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) taking his young daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert for her favorite musician, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). The venue is jam-packed with squealing girls and their less-than-enthused parents, but Cooper seems to be genuinely excited to spend quality time with his daughter. There's one catch: Cooper is living a double life. In one half, he's a father and husband with a beautiful family, but in the other half, he's a serial killer known as The Butcher who has a long list of victims. The police have caught wind that The Butcher will be attending the concert and at the insistence of famed FBI profiler Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills), they have set up a blockade to apprehend him. Thus begins a tense cat-and-mouse game as Cooper schemes a way to escape their notice and not alert his daughter that anything is amiss.
M. Night has all the ingredients for a solid thriller, and he utilizes them effectively in the first half of the story. However, as everything is initially confined to the concert venue, it feels claustrophobic and taut, as Cooper has little wiggle room to get out of situations. Hartnett carries the mood for the most part, cool and collected, though occasionally, he lets his mask slip, and you can see the darkness simmering underneath. On his phone, he has an app that lets him look at a live feed he has set up of one of his victims, Spencer (Mark Bacolcol), a young man chained up in a basement. Spencer's pleading for his life gives Cooper jolts of sinister pleasure, exposing his true nature as a predator. Like most abusers, Cooper is charismatic, and his beguiling nature also draws the viewer into his plight, making it easy to ashamedly root for him to evade capture.
One of the main criticisms of M. Night's modern filmography is the writing, and specifically, the dialogue. Sometimes, the cadence and word choices make conversations feel unnatural or stilted as if the characters aren't actually interacting with each other. While Trap, for the most part, doesn't fall victim to this, it bears a different type of writing quirk where characters will bluntly explain their way out of what would be considered plot contrivances. For the most part, M. Night isn't concerned with plot holes and will wave away any naysayers with these tiny background exposition dumps, then quickly move on to the next plot device. Occasionally it comes off rather silly, and the silliness only ramps up as the film leaves the concert for other destinations. Some might say this is unintentional, but I think M. Night knows it's ridiculous and doesn't mind; he will tell the story he wants no matter what. One can't help but postulate that perhaps a touch of Bollywood influence also creeps into the edges of the film.
Trap was shot on 35mm by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who has worked on films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Luca Guadagnino. As a result, it's a beautifully constructed film with interesting blocking, lighting, and camera angles. Lady Raven's concert is integrated well into the story, and Saleka Shyamalan (M. Night's real-life daughter) wrote all the pop songs specifically for the film and tied them thematically to complement the narrative. Later on, Saleka has a bigger role in the story, and she does well with her part, though the atmosphere has entered camp territory by that point. Similarly, Hartnett reveals his true form, fully embracing his madness and cementing his role as the film's lynchpin. There is a through line about the duality of man and the way some people can compartmentalize evil in their everyday lives, but it doesn't quite hit the mark until the last few minutes of the film. Overall, though Trap is somewhat messily constructed and often unbelievable, Josh Hartnett's intense performance and commitment to the character saves it from diving too far into ridiculousness, even infusing some aspects of it with poignancy and humanity.
--Michelle Kisner