Trap (2024)

I have hung back on probably most of the movies made by M. Night Shyamalan, but I’ve always been at least a little bit on his side. I respect his almost robotic commitment to twisty “surprise” developments—good for viewer appeal and expectations. The Sixth Sense completely fooled me. I’ve only seen it once but still mean to get back to it. I thought Unbreakable, with its dedication to comics culture, was pretty good too, but I admit I started involuntarily rolling my eyes a lot with Signs, The Village, and The Happening and haven’t followed closely since. I see with Trap that surprises are still part of the shtick, but even more there’s a nicely drawn boffo suspense drama element out of Alfred Hitchcock or Brian De Palma, along with a continuing ability to draw talent for the cast. He also takes little cameos like Hitchcock—who doesn’t like that? (not everyone) In a somewhat nepotistic move, Trap features Shyamalan’s daughter, singer Saleka Shyamalan, as pop star Lady Raven. The first half of the picture is set at one of her concerts and feels much more like a concert film—I’m saying that like it’s a good thing. Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his 12-year-old daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue, possibly the best or certainly the most fun player here) are going to the Lady Raven show as reward for Riley’s good grades. Cooper notices a large number of police and security forces at the arena. It turns out they have information that a serial killer on the loose, the “Butcher,” is at the show and they are determined to bring him down there. The arena show itself is the trap. Shyamalan has said he wanted to make a movie that would be like The Silence of the Lambs going on at a Taylor Swift show. He almost gets there. The leader of the law enforcement operation is Dr. Josephine Grant, a severe criminal profiler with an accent that makes her sound like Dr. Ruth. She’s played by Hayley Mills, my favorite casting inspiration here, who appeared as an adolescent in the early ‘60s in a number of Disney movies, including The Parent Trap. The identity of the killer in Trap is not particularly hidden but it’s the kind of thing you may as well discover for yourself. To be clear, you shouldn’t expect anything believable in Trap. Shyamalan is good at very movie-movie types of moments—visual reveals, swirling camera, stirring orchestral soundtrack, high points of suspense. Trap is a lot of fun but the key is that you shouldn’t think very hard about anything you see.