Trap Review: Josh Hartnett’s Smile Is the Creepiest Part of M. Night Shyamalan’s Latest

The post Trap Review: Josh Hartnett’s Smile Is the Creepiest Part of M. Night Shyamalan’s Latest appeared first on Consequence .

The Pitch: Seemingly average dad Cooper ( Josh Hartnett ) promised his young daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) that as a reward for getting good grades, he’d take her to see her favorite pop star live in concert. But when Cooper and Riley arrive at the Lady Raven ( Saleka Shyamalan ) show, Cooper notices that there are a lot of cops and FBI agents around. Turns out the authorities know that a notorious serial killer will be attending the concert, and they’ve set a trap there to catch him. Since Cooper is, in fact, the serial killer they’re looking for, that’s very interesting news to him. And the cat-and-mouse game begins…

Seems Like You’ve Been Meanin’ to Do Me Harm: According to his daughter , M. Night Shyamalan was inspired to write and direct his latest thriller after spending time hanging out backstage at her concerts, and as a Hitchcockian exercise, there’s a lot to admire about Trap , which for its first two-thirds or so is pretty compelling on a scene-by-scene basis.

That’s thanks to the tightness of the plotting and set-up, as Cooper puts his clever mind to the task of figuring out how he can escape the titular trap that’s been set for him. Smart Characters Solving Problems is a very specific film trope that is so enjoyable when executed properly, and it’s a credit to the film that everything that takes place at the concert venue falls well within that category.

Unfortunately, Trap doesn’t end there, and without getting into spoilers, the quality of the plotting quickly falls off a cliff once they leave the arena, because Trap simply refuses to end . We’re talking twist after twist after twist, each becoming less surprising as Cooper continues to find ways to escape his captors; the tedium is hard to escape. Shyamalan’s gift for suspense is one of his defining traits as a filmmaker — just last year, Knock at the Cabin was a master class in stressing out the audience. But something about telling a story through the eyes of a predator threw him off his game.

Even a Smooth Criminal One Day Must Get Caught: The most successful performance in Trap comes from Ariel Donoghue, who really did the work when it comes to playing a fan of a fictional musical artist. She knows every lyric, she knows every dance move, and brings such relatable joy to every aspect of the concert-going experience that you can almost forget that Lady Raven isn’t a real Lady Gaga-esque star.

As mentioned, Lady Raven is played by Shyamalan’s older daughter Saleka, who also wrote all of Lady Raven’s original songs. (14 in total, all available on the official soundtrack ), and is also asked to take on some heavy lifting as an actor, once the action shifts away from the concert. There are sometimes performances that really represent a failing on the director’s part: Saleka isn’t awful in her scenes, but clearly lacks the experience needed to carry some of the film’s most intense moments, and as a result a lot of tension is lost in the final act.

Trap (Warner Bros.)

This stands out the most when Saleka goes toe-to-toe with Josh Hartnett, whose performance is central to the film, and suffers from the film’s similar ups and downs. After being a headlining heartthrob for a certain generation of young women, Josh Hartnett has been on the verge of a “Hartnett-ssance” for the last few years, thanks to well-regarded performances in Oppenheimer and Black Mirror . (He even popped up in an episode of The Bear Season 3, a true indicator of his cool factor.)

For a good portion of Trap , Hartnett manages a complicated balancing act, various layers of Cooper emerging as the story calls for it. He nails the smile in particular — Cooper seems to have a hundred varieties of grin available to him, each one hiding a different kind of anger, stress, or fear. However, Hartnett’s a lot less scary when the facade drops, especially given some of the clunky, over-obvious dialogue he has to work through to explain some very basic psychology.

The Verdict: Like so many Shyamalan scripts these days, Trap feels like it needed at least two or three more drafts to really sing: At least one pass to make some of that dialogue a little less blaring obvious, and a pass to remove at least one of the extraneous fake-out endings. If nothing else, the plethora of twists manages to totally diffuse the tension by the end, mostly because every time Cooper’s caught in a corner, you can only assume he’s moments away from escaping, again .

That said, Trap does have one brilliant touch: At its best, Shyamalan has given us a perfect portrait of the power of straight white male privilege. The cops know their target is a man, but beyond that they’re lacking enough specific details to identify Cooper on sight, and Cooper’s a genius at playing up his nice goofy dad bonafides, sliding past suspicion with nothing more than a stolen employee badge and innate confidence. What’s most terrifying about Cooper isn’t knowing what he’s capable of — it’s knowing how easily he could get away with it.

Where to Watch: Trap is in theaters now.

Trailer:

Trap Review: Josh Hartnett’s Smile Is the Creepiest Part of M. Night Shyamalan’s Latest
Liz Shannon Miller