Trap (2024) – A Review
A review of the 2024 thriller Trap, starring Josh Hartnett and written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Thousands of teen girls are filling seats at a concert to see their favorite singer Lady Raven (Saluki Night). Cooper (Josh Hartnett) has scored some tickets for his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) and she’s as excited as she could be to see her singing idol in person with her father by her side.
Something other than the sweet sounds of dance music is catching Cooper’s attention. He notices a very strong police presence at this concert. He eventually learns that the police discovered that notorious serial killer known as ‘The Butcher’ is in attendance and the cops are planning on cornering him in the venue and catching him.
Well, it turns out the sweet natured family man Cooper is in fact ‘the Butcher’! Now he’s going to have to not raise any suspicion from Riley, try to find a way out this concert and get out of there without getting caught.
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap has a suspenseful premise at the heart of it. We know Hartnett is a bad guy pretty quickly (that’s not one of those Shyamalan twist endings – he is in fact a killer), but we’re also kind of rooting for him to manage an escape.
The first half of Trap is exactly what you hope it would be. Cornered, desperate, quick thinking, distractions, narrow escapes. It’s the second half of Trap where the suspense starts to trickle away.
The filmmakers must have known what the stronger and more suspenseful part of the story was. When the trailers first hit of Trap, they completely focused on the concert venue portion. The second half was perhaps hinted at, but was not the selling point, which was wise, since it’s the second half that sinks the film – at least it did for me. There are really no satisfying or interesting surprises to be found that keeps the momentum going.
Conveniences, luck and plot leaps that hold no satisfaction start to pile up and sabotage the rest of the film once it leaves the concert venue. Which is a real shame, since the concert half holds your attention as you watch Hartnett try to squirm his way out of this tightening dragnet he’s in the middle of. Oh how I would have preferred to see the whole film unfold in that crowded concert venue.
But it doesn’t. Hartnett does manage to get out and the film continues on from there and what transpires is not satisfying or very interesting. It almost feels like a cheat. There’s this ‘cat and mouse’ game that begins to unfold. You’re waiting for the suspense to ratchet up, some kind of twist that will come in and it all just starts to slowly deflate.
Hartnett gives a fine performance and goes from lovable father to deranged maniac effectively. The rest of the characters, including Riley, are not at all memorable. It comes as something of a surprise when Night’s Lady Raven get tangled into the story and ends up becoming a major character in the second half. It’s done somewhat clunky and it was a big element in the story that popped my suspension of disbelief. After that turn, I became less and less engaged with the movie.
Trap is not going to rank as one of Shyamalan’s best or worst films, it just sits somewhere in the middle. It’s the first half of the film with Hartnett trying to get out of the trap that will be most remembered. The second half, along with an unsatisfying ending, left me underwhelmed. It had an interesting premise, but it didn’t last all the way through.
