M. Night Shyamalan pitched the plot of Trap as, “what if The Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?” That’s an incredible description and a very compelling hook, one so bold that, if executed properly, could possibly be one of this year’s best films, or end up being a wasted potential if it goes the other way. Shyamalan’s latest film lands somewhere in the middle. Like a lot of his films, Trap is a skillfully composed thriller with a highly intriguing premise that, sadly, falters deeply in the back half with a near-miss of an ending. But Hartnett’s performance almost makes it all worthwhile, his character embodying the playfulness of a dad with a sinister secret.

The film follows Philadelphia firefighter Cooper (Josh Hartnett), a seemingly innocent family man who’s just taking his tween daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a Taylor Swift-adjacent pop star’s concert. Unbeknownst to his wife and kids, Cooper lives a double life as a prolific serial killer who goes by the alias “The Butcher.” The said pop star is Lady Raven, played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka, who wrote and performed a number of the songs featured in the film. Noticing a suspicious amount of police presence in the arena, Cooper quickly realizes that the entire concert is an elaborate trap set up by the FBI to capture the Butcher. And now he must find a way to escape without raising the suspicion of Riley.

Casting your own daughter is admittedly a brazen choice, and it leads me to believe that Trap is partly made to promote Saleka’s music. I guess it does keep up with the film’s theme of father-daughter relationships, so Shyamalan gets dad points for that. It’s a sweet but a double edged gesture, however. Saleka is convincing enough as Lady Raven while singing and performing on stage, but comes off severely lacking during the more serious scenes. Raven gets an increased screen time in the second half, and I can’t help but feel that a more capable actor would make those scenes more compelling.

Hartnett, who’s having a bit of a career renaissance since appearing in Oppenheimer, is the glue that holds everything together. Shyamalan’s script requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief with its contrived plot and nonsensical choices. Despite these missteps, Hartnett is an inspired casting and a thrill to watch as he effortlessly switches between his double personas; he’s all smiles and awkwardly dancing while in dad mode in one moment, then slick and cunning as he slips through several police squads around the arena. Hartnett is charming enough that it makes us actively root for him to get away with it, and Trap is definitely most the fun in that sense.

Once the setting leaves the arena, Trap admittedly falls apart due to decisions that don’t make sense other than it “needs to move the plot.” The film’s intrigue is at its highest when we’re watching Cooper cleverly find ways to escape the authorities as the walls start to close in on him in the arena. Sadly, Shyamalan never fully maximizes the architecture of the setting they’re in. In one scene, Cooper sees an underground hatch as a potential escape route but then never goes into it. There are more instances where Shyamalan presents an interesting plot point that he never revisits again, and what ends up happening turns out to be underwhelming.

Although I have to admire the filmmaker for fully committing to his original ideas, albeit needing more fleshing out in some parts. Major studios are getting more reluctant in greenlighting projects that aren’t tied to an established IP-heavy. Despite dragging in the latter parts, I was never bored while watching Trap and even found a lot of scenes to be oddly funny. It’s just unfortunate that the film’s unpredictability ended up being its own undoing.

Rating:

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.