Trap is a suspenseful thriller from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan. In it, we follow seemingly normal father Cooper (Josh Hartnett) taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite performer, Lady Raven. However, he soon learns that the concert is a trap (see what they did there?) to catch the serial killer nicknamed The Butcher, his alter ego. This begins a cat-and-mouse game where he has to do whatever he can to get him and his daughter out of the arena without arousing any suspicion.
Trap is a fascinating movie in the sense that the plot is immediately given away by the trailer. Right off the bat, we know that Cooper is the serial killer. While I was a bit baffled by this decision, it actually made the first two-thirds of the movie extremely suspenseful. All we need to know is that Cooper is being hunted, yet he is extremely resourceful and is able to use his surroundings to give himself space from the police. It adds a lot of tension when you know the stakes are high, even though morally we should be rooting for this man to be arrested.
I thought Josh Hartnett gave a very unhinged performance here. He has to balance two lives: one as a mild-mannered dad with OCD and a happy family and a monster who has mother issues that cause him the rage to slaughter. The split in the performances is very apparent, and while maybe not as significant of a moment, is perfectly demonstrated as he walks past a group of cops pretending to work at the arena. He is friendly and smiling until he gets past the bulk of the officers and his demeanor flips: he’s straight-faced and bumping right through the last of the cops. It’s a minor scene but I thought it showed Hartnett’s ability to flip between his two personalities at the drop of a dime.
As with pretty much all Shyamalan movies, the dialogue stands out as being incredibly awkward. At this point, I wonder if it’s intentional. It truly feels like most characters have never interacted with each other before. With Hartnett I understand, as he is essentially two different people. But even strangers he interacts with talk in a way that feels incredibly forced. There’s a scene where he talks to the mother of one of Riley’s old friends and it is so uncomfortably confrontational for no reason. I don’t know what mood it was trying to set or match but it didn’t work for me here.
Also, a Shyamalan staple is his twists. There wasn’t a real major twist like The Sixth Sense or even Old but I think some reveals towards the end were pretty satisfying. As I said earlier, Cooper was the Butcher, and that was the main point of the trailers. While there wasn’t the big “Oh My!” twist, I was a really big fan of the story. I loved how the story is framed from the Butcher’s point of view. I love that the entire first portion of the movie is him trying to figure out how he can escape with his daughter without her catching on. The movie uses the arena very well as the setting as there are so many hallways and corridors he can duck away into before returning to the concert.
The ending did lose me, however. This feels like a movie that didn’t quite know how it wanted to wrap itself up. There are at least 3 spots in my mind where the credits could’ve rolled and I would’ve been satisfied but the movie just kept going. Shyamalan wanted to go with a more emotional moment wrapping up Cooper’s mommy issues, but it could’ve been done sooner on. The ending is open-ended, but I would’ve preferred if the ending was a bit darker, as at this point, the facade was gone with Cooper. It just left me feeling a little let down by the time I left the theater.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Trap is very entertaining, even with its glaring warts. The writing is bad but it doesn’t stop Josh Hartnett from being a force. The ending was a bit of a letdown but it didn’t ruin the rest of the movie from being thrilling and engaging. I didn’t mention it sooner but this movie is brilliantly shot and honestly one of the funnier movies I’ve seen this year. I absolutely recommend Trap for anyone looking for a good time.
