Trap is M. Night Shyamalan’s latest psychological effort. While it’s a far cry from some of his more unintentionally hilarious atrocities, like The Happening, The Last Airbender, or After Earth, it doesn’t reach the heights of The Sixth Sense, Signs, or even Split.
It might be his best film since Split, but it’s also a near miss.
Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper Adams, a firefighter in Philadelphia who takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert featuring pop sensation Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, M. Night’s daughter). While they’re at the concert, Cooper begins noticing some suspicious activity when a barrage of police officers are there hoping to catch a serial killer called The Butcher.
Anyone who has seen the trailer for Trap automatically knows that Cooper is The Butcher, and he devises every plan in the book to escape without being caught. At this point, I’m intentionally leaving the plot’s events vague so that there can be some measure of suspense, but that might be an exercise in futility.
For its first two acts, Trap does a solid job of setting up its premise despite the reveal of The Butcher. It also keeps things afloat with some effective pacing, but once we get to that final act, the movie loses its momentum until we get to the conclusion and a hint of a sequel.
This movie would’ve worked better if Shyamalan had settled on a more imaginative climax instead of relying on a pseudo-Hitchcockian structure. However, Hartnett’s committed performance is especially charming and convincing and works throughout.
Shyamalan has a checkered filmography and Trap falls somewhere in between. It’s well-intentioned and sufficiently made, but it could’ve been more and better.
Grade: B-
(Rated PG-13 for some violent content and brief strong language.)
