Hitchcock diluted by De Palma diluted by mid-tier M. Night Shyamalan leaves you with, well, bottom-tier Shyamalan. And that describes Trap. Here’s the dubious premise (though no more so than most of his films): at a stadium concert by pop superstar Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, the writer-director’s daughter), a sting operation has been set up to arrest one man in the audience: Cooper (Josh Hartnett). The catch? Cooper—whom the film reveals early on is a serial killer known as “The Butcher”—is attending the concert with his oblivious teen daughter (Ariel Donoghue). A cat-and-mouse game ensues, but it mostly depends on conveniences and contrivances, without employing many of the interesting stylistic techniques you can usually count on from Shyamalan. (I caught one split diopter shot and maybe two instances of off-kilter framing.) Hartnett does what he can with the material, though the performance mostly consists of flipping a switch between dopey dad and strategic killer. (Hitchcock would have made us feel some empathy—or at least complicity—with this character.) And just when you think Trap is simply a failed, forgettable experiment, the movie turns into a real Shyamalan doozy—and this is coming from someone who liked Lady in the Water. In the third act, Lady Raven—the director framing his daughter in alarming extreme close-ups—becomes involved to a ludicrous degree, followed by a fourth act that’s even more preposterous. By the end, Trap turns into one of those movies you almost have to see to believe.
(8/4/2024)
