"Trap" - Next evolution of Nepo Babies

Josh
Sep 4, 2024
7 min read

Updated: Sep 16, 2024

M. Night Shyamalan (2024)

The smartest thing about this movie, is tricking the audience to see your daughters concert.

Edit - Star Rating dropped from 2.5 to 2

Nothing makes me more disappointed in a movie when the concept sounds promising that doesn’t meet its full potential. I’ve always found enjoyment in movies where characters are stuck in a single location and you as the audience can put yourself in that situation to participate in the film. A good ‘stuck in a situation’ film will have the audience make calls as the character is doing it. Picking up on set-ups, seeing the character action them only to have it fail but then do something smart to get out of the situation. This makes you feel helpless like the character and root for them when they do something clever. Which is what I wish I got from Trap, the new film by M. Night Shyamalan. Instead we get a new phase of M Nights, “I made this for my children,” by going full nepo and creating a film for his singer/song writer daughter.

Every time an M. Night movie drops it’s hard to not talk about his history. His rise and fall of an up-and-coming director and then an assumed rise again in recent years only to drop right back down. It is truly amazing seeing someone with clear talent kick off with The Sixth Sense to something like The Happening. You had to keep asking yourself, how does this man keep getting money? And in 2015 we got a clear answer, it’s Jason Blum. But not a lot of money, a small amount, compared to early projects, to make a low scope crappy ‘found footage’ movie. Followed by a great psychological thriller, Split, again something on a smaller budget. And this elevation in quality that looked like a return to form was only a foothill compared to the valley that he had sunk too. We then got Glass, Old, and the forgettable A knock at the cabin door (Bet you forgot about that one didn’t, ya) all one sentence sellable movies that all feel flat for me. And sadly, that isn’t any different for Trap. A premise that you could easily sell to your friend so you don’t have to go to the theatre alone, only to wish you did go alone as to not be embarrassed that you suggested this for an outing.

Trap follows Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his daughter (Ariel Donoghue), who had features that reminded me of Amy Schumer, go to a concert staring the this universes wanna-be Taylor Swift, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). At the stadium, our lead is observing a large amount of security at this event. Literally a comical amount, we have SWAT officers standing at the entrance with full auto weapons. If I were setting a trap I would be a little more discrete until I knew 95% of the stadium was full but I digress. It turns out the whole show is a trap for an infamous serial killer called ‘The Butcher’, who is assumed to be attending. The cherry on top, our lead is The Butcher. What a cool concept… key word being concept.

So, firstly, with a movie like this the joy comes from rooting for your lead but when your lead is meant to be a brutal killer, it’s kind of hard to not want to see him get caught. Characters in the movie describe him as a pretty brutal monster. So, if we don’t care that he gets caught, then at least we can be engaged with how we gets out of the situation right? Whilst trying to protect his secret life from his daughter? I’m sorry, but even that isn’t very fun to watch.

We don’t get to see Cooper do anything really creative to get out of situations and when he does all I can think is, how did he not get caught doing that. For example, we him sneak behind the counter of a burger shop with an open kitchen, to increase the temperature of an oil fryer and in rig it with extra oil bottles to make it explode. With the amount of people in the scene, he would’ve been apprehended there and then. On the note of all the extras in that scene, a positive is that we have a ton of extras within the stadium. It’s not much but I did give a small ‘huh’ in an impressed tone.

The trap itself also seems pretty flawed. If you’ve ever been to an event like this normally you get searched before entering the venue. You’ll get your bags searched and if its a massive event you might get a pat-down or metal scanned, so already if I was a killer and I was worried about getting caught I would be avoiding this straight away. Although he doesn’t have to worry because instead of searching and interrogating people on entrance, the police just walk around and pull aside men who match the killers description. We actually, see police escorting people at random from the crowd. With the knowledge that there would be security or police at the event of the biggest music act ever, he still attends but as soon as he see a cop he begins to freak out. It feels like if he just acted calm and stayed with his daughter instead of walking around to increase his chances of being caught, he would’ve been just fine.

He's described by an under-utilised criminal profiler, played by Hayley Mills, (because get it was in The Parent Trap 1961) as an extremely cunning individual. It could've worked in the movies favour to instead be a cat and mouse style conflict between these two. The movie even frames this profiler as an extreme threat, like he's had a stint with her before so he knows his met is equal. Although none of that is felt by the audience. Which could be been a some what interesting dynamic for our lead but he's just so flat as a character. Night tries to give him a bit of flair by giving him OCD but doesn't really lead to anything or act has a little spice to make his character more realistic. He just has OCD which means in movie terms that he likes to make sure towels are straight. The another classic movie trait to tick off the crazy person list which is mummy issues. Some characters even pull a Friday the 13th: Part 2 where numerous times they talk to him like this mother to try and break him down.

I'll quickly rattle of some other little things that got on my nerves and moments that just happened so we could feel mild tension. We have what’s meant to be a tense scene where he’s in a room with a bunch of SWAT officers. Although, they’re all in there getting a briefing on the killer. Not sure why they’re getting briefed at the location rather than before they entered the venue. But during that moment, they didn't know who they're looking for, Cooper really didn't have to do anything cunning to get our or out-smart the officers. He just walked in and walked out.

Later, Cooper runs into a parent of a daughter who's been giving his daughter a rough time as school. Upon a second encounter, she’s very aggressive towards him because he said “Let’s don’t do this here at the venue but talk about it some other time” and she gets extremely angry about that? Even though he’s still open to talk at a different time and this is meant to create a tense scene as the confrontation is happening in-front of police. But again, its hard to feel tension on a scene that didn’t happen naturally and it’s an artificial attempt to have something happen.

And then towards what I thought was the end, the father and daughter get the opportunity to go back stage with Lady Raven which will allow them to get out from backstage, knowns as the only safe exit from the stadium. But because there’s a group of SWAT officers at the exit, who just need to do a quick check of them (again, he could just lie), he opens up to Raven about who is his. Taking her like a pseudo hostage to get out the back without being checked. Again, if he just kept his cool, I can’t see a reason why he couldn’t get out of the situation.

Towards the end of the film, although much earlier than I expected, we leave the stadium which for me is where the movie begun to left a bit unfocused and tried to do too much at once. For me, I wish more of the movie took place at the stadium as I thought it they did a pretty good job of keeping the stadium interesting. We cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Suspira (2018), Call me by your name), I was always some what engaged visually from that perspective. But alas, we spend the last act watching Cooper slip by armies of police and SWAT like Agent 47 from the Hitman game series switching out outfits without anyone seeing. Taking hostages and location hopping as his family deals with the knowledge of the his secret.

Now this is where my cynical part of my brain kicks in. In the past M. Night has made bad movies and then shifted the blame over to his children. He'll say “I told this story to my kids" (Lady in the water) or “My kids watched this show so I made a movie" (Avatar: The Last Airbender) but we've hit a whole new level of making a film for his kids by promoting their music career. Which I feel does effect the main focal point of the movie as we have moments of just watching the show. I feel for a movie like this, the setting should be the foundation but the music should be wallpaper. We shouldn't stop and switch focus to dancing and awkward celebrity cameos (Kid Cudi). But she does become a bigger part in the third act which fails as she isn't good at acting. A good performer and singer but she had a Disney-child actor style of acting. Which with M. Nights (I'm gonna say it) bad dialogue, she fails to say anything convincingly. Although, Josh Hartnett manages to know what he's doing and elevate the script with his performance.

In the realm of M. Night movies this isn't his worst. But there is a large gap between his mediocre movies and his greats. Trap falls into his mediocre movies, that I'll be honest feels tainted by the spotlight being on his daughter. For me the premise didn't hit the heights it could've so I can't even recommend it on the concept alone. Stay clear and don't fall for this trap.