Directed By M. Night Shyamalan

Starring – Josh Hartnett, Hayley Mills, Saleka Shyamalan

The Plot – A father (Hartnett) and his teen daughter (Ariel Donoghue) attend a pop concert only to realize they’ve entered the center of a dark and sinister event.

Rated PG-13 for some violent content and brief strong adult language

Trap | Official Trailer (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Shyamalan films have always been a mixed bag for me, but with reserved expectations I can safely state that ‘Trap’ is his best film since ‘Split’, with the polarizing filmmaker once again utilizing a Hitchcockian gimmick to lure audiences into his plot, but this time with surprising elements in returns that made this an effortless engagement to continuously stay invested in. With over twenty-five years now under his directorial belt, Shyamalan knows how to utilize a particular environment, this time inside of the claustrophobic confines of a sold-out concert, which not only certify this dangerous father as a combustible element between thirty thousand innocent people, but also adds to the unpredictability of what he will do to continuously elude his capture, resulting in edge-of-the-seat psychology that, like his protagonist’s predicament, closes in on him with each passing moment. Unlike some of his most recent films, Shyamalan wastes very little time setting the movements to motion in the storytelling, with the primary plot materializing in the opening five minutes of the movie, and from there maintaining this urgent emphasis throughout a 100 minute engagement that refuses to slow down, despite the second and third acts evolving from this single stage setting that could’ve grown tediously repetitive if left to sit and stew for too long. Shyamalan’s gift of unique filmmaking is also put to good use in conjuring the madness and mayhem of pop stardom, with uniquely complex framing and meaningful production values, which help to elicit the pageantry and spectacle of the chaos that resonates long before this maniacal madman ever sets foot inside of the venue. Like his previous films, Shyamalan uses a lot of single frame, point-of-view perspectives to immerse the audience in the plights of his characters, and between the sudden surprises of Hartnett’s character constantly evading new challenges, and his daughter’s obsessive awestruck for the pop princess before her, Shyamalan proves he isn’t above using humor as a means of bringing out the awkwardness of an anxious situation, with each of his characters feeling like they’re planets apart mentally, despite sitting right next to one another. This crafts a compelling dynamic where the elder is maintaining composure for his daughter, and in that aspect we come to understand and appreciate the script’s ways of conveying not only how intelligent he is in constantly remaining one step ahead of authorities, but also how ruthlessly unforgiving and unsalvageable his character’s design truly is, with abruptly drastic measures of impulsive actions that visualize everything about him that the authorities already know. As for half of the film emanating from a concert, Shyamalan does toe the line of nepotism by casting his daughter (There’s also a poster for his other daughter’s film ‘The Watchers’ featured), Saleka, as musical artist Lady Raven, but a feat that makes sense, since Saleka is a musician and composer in real life. What Saleka lacks in over-the-top emotionality during scenes she drives, she more than makes up for in the authenticity of her on-stage persona, bringing along her own catalogue of tracks that she wrote exclusively for the film, which might not exactly be my style of music preference, but does prove she went above and beyond to earn the role. Aside from Saleka, the film is also blessed with a duo of meaningful performances between Mills and especially Hartnett, with the latter giving what I’m confident is my single favorite performance of his entire career. Hartnett effortlessly balances the nerdy awkwardness of being a teenage father, with the menacingly edgy underlining of his character’s darkest secret, and it results in a prideful lust of sorts for his delight of the stakes and circumstances that envelope him, driving him to outwit authorities as this indulgent game of sorts that he simply can’t look away from. As for Mills, she continues to be one of the most underrated actresses of all-time, and I was eagerly delighted to see her as the head investigator driving this onslaught of resources to take Hartnett down. Between Hayley’s unflinching charisma during long-winded narrations, and the unintimidated consistency of her construct, Mills knocks it out of the park as a hybrid of Clarice Starling and Sam Loomis, and though her screen time is unfortunately limited, she enhances the scenes she accompanies, with a fascinating protagonist that matches her antagonist pound for pound.

NEGATIVES

Though ‘Trap’ is a welcome improvement for Shyamalan over his efforts from the last seven years, a sloppy script keeps it from truly reaching the next level, with an abundance of clumsy developments and overwhelming conveniences that ask more out of its audience than should be asked with trying to follow along. If you can get around the idea that the FBI would put thousands of lives on the line to capture a killer, you won’t be able to go along with how Hartnett’s character continuously evades overwhelming odds and predicaments, resulting in red herrings and McGuffins that are downright silly when thought about for ten seconds, making the whole film feel like it takes place in the mind of Hartnett’s killer, for how easy it should be to catch him, but isn’t. In fact, I also hated that the film kind of unceremoniously gives up on the uniqueness of its claustrophobic gimmick about halfway through the movie, materializing a bait-and-switch for the audience that isn’t half as clever as some of his grandest twists, nor half as original as the idea of a killer among 30,000 people. Shyamalan also has difficulty juggling tone between uneven halves, which sometimes can feel like two entirely different films with a conjoining plot. For the first half of the movie, the humor is overwhelming on the terror and suspense, with the latter feeling practically non-existent during scenes that practically beg for them, which in turn directly undercut the vulnerability of the killer’s predicament, and during the second half, it’s sharply overcompensating for such a lack of aforementioned intensity, in turn sacrificing its palpable humor for an overwhelmingly dark and devastating climax that, while effective in elevating the stakes of the narrative, stumbles during a final twenty minutes to the movie that are slow and stalky, unlike its previous majority. If you’re looking to be scared or even jolted unceremoniously by this movie, you won’t have it, and while there’s nothing wrong with humor and horror merging together to craft something unique, they never do it during ‘Trap’ in ways that value them simultaneously with one another. Finally, the technical merits are just as conflicted and inconsistent, with the movie’s sound design bringing forth one of my biggest pet peeves to cinema that absolutely drives me crazy. I don’t expect audiences to agree with this, but my concentration to the environment gets broken whenever characters who speak low during concert scenes are heard perfectly between one another, yet never heard as equally by extras sitting next to them. In addition, Hartnett’s character is able to hear conversations down hallways from characters in another room completely, perhaps appraising meaning in supernatural hearing that would help clear up so many conflicts with logic. Simply put, either make the characters shout aloud, or elevate the mixing of the music louder to represent the authenticity of an environment, but failing to do either saddles the film with an obnoxious trait that elicited unintentional laughter from me, making it difficult to buy into even the smallest measures that this film, its environments, or its master magician were constantly selling.

OVERALL
‘Trap’ is an entertaining improvement from some of Shyamalan’s recent slogs, but it never comes close to capturing the lightning in a bottle of his greatest triumphs, as a result of the haphazard and imbalanced effort of his inferior work as a script writer. While Hartnett gives the performance of his life as a maniacal madman living two lives, and the movie’s fun factors will inevitably keep audiences engaged, the humor and horror never work together simultaneously in ways that could grow and expand upon the use of its gimmick, which Shyamalan abandons midway through the movie, in favor of another serial slasher with overwhelming conveniences and a superfluous resolution.

My Grade: 6/10 or C