M. Night Shyamalan is back with a thrilling and somewhat original film starring Josh Hartnett. The premise from the trailer lays out an intriguing plot where Cooper (Hartnett) takes his daughter to a pop star concert at an arena only to find out that the FBI and local police are also there to catch a serial killer nicknamed The Butcher. The twist is revealed in the trailer that Josh Harnett is the serial killer and the movie takes us on a wild ride of cat-and-mouse as the Cooper character does his best not to get caught.
M. Night Shyamalan started as an amazing write/director who could consistently deliver exciting stories while wowing audiences with crazy twists almost no one was expecting. When the twists became anticipated and thus lost the impact of the unexpected, Shyamalan turned to smaller stories with bigger ideas and often no twists. For the most part, they stunk due to plot holes and clunky dialogue. There is no denying Shyamalan is a talented filmmaker and deserves a lot of credit for his skills, however, he often gets 80% to greatness and lacks the remaining 20%. So you watch something fun, but not exactly a classic masterpiece that will stand the test of time.
Trap is pretty much exactly an 80% enjoyable flick with a few things that don’t work. The dialogue isn’t as bad as some previous Shyamalan movies, but it isn’t exactly Oscar-worthy either. The parts that really brought me out of the experience were the plot inconsistencies and occasionally unbelievable character moments. It’s hard to imagine that 100s of FBI, SWAT, and police officers would be so incredibly inept that this guy could just waltz around trying to probe ways out of the arena without them caring or noticing. It’s like a video game with badly coded NPCs that just keep doing their stand around/patrolling routines without challenging the player when he gets a little too bold. Particularly egregious was the FBI profiler character who is so undeveloped, I don’t even know if we find out what her name was, but she certainly isn’t the yin to the serial killer’s yang. You really need a Clarice Starling-esque character that is trying to outpace the bad guy.
Josh Hartnett is fantastic in his performance, so much so that I was honestly rooting for this despicable serial killer to get away and survive. From the happy dad with his daughter at the beginning to the caged, afraid animal of the middle section to the straight up psychopath in the final act, Hartnett did it all with ease and a playful enjoyment.
There was still enough here to have a good time, but I hold M. Night Shyamalan to a high standard, because I think he holds the keys to great filmmaking akin to Stanley Kubrick or Steven Spielberg. He just needs to push a little harder to achieve it.
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