By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
M. Night Shyamalan has been the butt of jokes since “I See Dead People” became the hottest movie quote of 1999, but with his most recent films, it’s become clear that the director is starting to get laughs with audiences. Old It was a little unclear if the humor was intentional or if it was just his over-the-top sense of style over substance, but this year, Shyamalan made it clear that he’s in on the joke. Trap It is, on the surface, a psychological thriller, but it also has a tongue-in-cheek style and a sense that everyone involved knows how stupid the movie is, and as a result, it’s one of Shyamalan’s best films.
serial dad
Fresh off your well received shift oppenheimerJosh Hartnett plays Cooper, a Philadelphia firefighter who takes his daughter (Ariel Donoghue) to a Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night) concert that turns out to be a trap to capture The Butcher, a notorious murderer. Serially famous for abandoning piles of body parts around town. It’s not a spoiler that Cooper is The Butcher, a reveal that in any other film would be the third.act turning point, but in TrapIt’s a first act revelation and the movie is all the better for it.
Once Cooper realizes that he is trapped inside the arena, Trap start playing like a dark comedy version of a flintstone episode where Fred has to be in two places at once while lying to Wilma (or for other ’90s kids, the The boy knows the world episode where Cory and Shawn watch Vader in a wrestling match during Topanga’s party). Cooper, a dutiful father, tries to keep his daughter happy while also trying to free himself in increasingly absurd ways, from sneaking onto the roof to pushing a woman down the stairs. The stellar push is the exact moment in which it becomes clear that, finally, M. Night Shyamalan He is winking at the camera.
Hayley Mills, star of the 1961 film Parent Trap (Get it? Cooper’s a dad…he’s in a trap…), plays an FBI profiler who helps provide the most absurd moment in an already absurd movie when Cooper gets his hands on a police radio. While searching for the fire alarm to create a distraction, Mills explains how The Butcher will likely create a distraction by setting off a fire alarm. Thanks to Trap I’m already making it clear that this is not a movie to be taken seriously, it’s a stupid moment that works.
Nothing in this movie should work
I wish the actual trap sequence was on Trap It was actually a little longer, only because Hartnett does an incredible job of slowly falling apart while trying to hold himself together for the sake of his daughter. That and, when it’s over, the movie focuses on Lady Raven and Cooper’s home life, which still has some surprisingly stupid but charming moments, with the limo ride being a highlight for me because of its looney tunes Logical, but it lacks the frenetic and absurdity that is at stake in the concert. Just as the reveal of the killer would be a highlight of another film, the escape from the titular trap is just another moment in this film and not the actual ending.
The weakest part of Trap is Saleka Night Shyamalan as Lady Raven, a fusion of Taylor Swift and Lady Gagabut that’s because he’s a musician first and this is his first acting role. With that in mind, she does a great job, and her slightly out-of-character appearance throughout the movie helps work for the character, but in any other movie, the way she delivers her lines would immediately take you out of the story. Under his father’s direction, the awkwardness, like Cooper’s absurdist humor, somehow works.
A unique experience
Trap is a film that has divided audiences and critics, with a 57 percent bad rating on rotten tomatoes; This is a movie you will either love or hate. I really enjoyed it, mostly thanks to Josh Hartnett, who somehow elevates the script by chewing on every set piece in a way he couldn’t even do in gothic horror. Penny dreadful. No film in recent memory can match the manic energy, strange story choices, and off-kilter tone of Trap, which makes it a unique visual experience.
you can transmit Trap today in Max.
