‘Trap’ lacks the heft of some of M. Night Shyamalan’s best films, but none of the thrills

It’s the stans who will ultimately save us.

M. Night Shyamalan’s newest thriller, Trap, is perhaps his most preposterous movie yet, and that’s saying a lot about the man who is never afraid to take a big swing. But there’s a lot of fun waiting to be had for those willing to check any large items like scrutiny or skepticism before entering the arena. 

Trap begins with dad-of-the-year Cooper (Josh Hartnett) driving his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see the Taylor Swift-esque pop sensation Lady Raven (the director’s daughter, Saleka Shyamalan) in concert. Riley belts out the latest Lady Raven tunes in the car while Dad hides his winces, clearly in love with his off-key angel. As the pair settle into their seats (right on the floor!), there’s some quality generation gap chatter (“crispy” means cool, but “fried” is just cringe) plus some talk about now ex-friends who are giving Riley the cold shoulder. Would that everyone had an understanding father like Cooper!

But there is a problem. When he takes a moment alone in the restroom, he whips out his cell phone to look at a surveillance feed and, wouldn’t you know it, he’s actually the deranged serial killer known the land over as “The Butcher,” and his latest kidnap victim is chained up in some horrible basement. Unexpected! It gets better. After befriending a loquacious dude at a merch table (the very funny Jonathan Langdon), he learns that somehow the FBI knows that The Butcher is attending the show. Indeed, this last-minute matinee gig is a big (say it together, class) trap! The authorities have the place surrounded, and no adult male will exit without being questioned. 

Everyone reading this, I hope, does not harbor secret desires to commit random gruesome murders. But there’s something about The Movies that makes you want to root for whoever is on screen, even if what they are doing is, you know, evil. In this case, we are very invested in wanting Cooper to somehow figure out a way to escape the giant concert venue. (Note: it’s the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, pretending to be somewhere in Shyamalan’s beloved Philadelphia. Keen observers will notice because Riley and Cooper get pretzels and they are NOT true Philly-style. This is the greatest transgression Mr. Shyamalan has ever put to film.) Anyway, watching Hartnett try to stay cool on the outside while he’s freaking out on the inside is terrific, and the screenplay takes great delight in amping up the tension with several ridiculous curveballs.

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Also freaking out is Riley because she adores Lady Raven (Saleka singing her own tunes), and Shyamalan deploys many of his classic close-ups, which hit pause on the suspense premise, but shine a fun spotlight on the glories of fandom. It’s a nice touch that becomes relevant to the plot in the back half in ways no self-respecting critic would ever put in a first-look review. Suffice it to say, everyone knows to expect the unexpected with an M. Night Shyamalan movie, and this movie is happy to pick itself up and dance into a whole unexpected set of sequences. 

While this is a film mostly of surface pleasures (it takes its celebration of pop music culture seriously) there are some darker moments to be found. Somewhere in there, Trap tries to examine the nature of evil and deploys, of all people, British actress Hayley Mills as some kind of brilliant criminologist working with the FBI. One does wonder if she got the gig because one of her most famous movies is The Parent Trap and Shyamalan thought that was funny. These scenes drag the proceedings down a smidge, but they are so broad and basic that it’s hard to get too upset.

Unfortunately, Trap does not have the punch-to-the-gut weirdness found in Shyamalan’s two most recent outings, Old and Knock at the Cabin. I’d place it more alongside the enjoyable The Visit or Split, and, indeed, there are some story commonalities with both. It is, however, masterfully shot, with great use of wide angles, cropped frames, and a sense of foreboding inside and around the concert venue. I suppose it won’t give away too much to say that, yes, we do eventually leave the arena, and when we do, there’s a palpable unease in mundane environments, entirely due to the amped-up performances. Alison Pill adds some edge as Cooper’s wife, and there are some good comic moments from Kid Cudi and Russell “Russ” Vitale as other pop performers. Shyamalan himself also makes one of his typical “am I actually controlling all of this?” cameos.

So, is it okay to root for the bad guy? Don’t look at Trap that way. Think of it as a storytelling challenge. How is a guy that’s painted into a corner gonna come up with a way to get out? That’s a question both for Cooper and M. Night Shyamalan, and they both come up with some unexpected answers. Grade: B+