A couple of months ago, I got the pleasure of reviewing a movie by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter. Now, this week, I get to review one of his movies that features another one of his daughters. The summer movie season is rolling along and there is quite a bit out there to watch right now. I chose this over Alien: Romulus because I have always been a fan of Shyamalan, and I was hoping I would find time to re-watch the other Alien films before the new one. Well, like most of his movies, Trap has a lot to break down, so before we continue this will be full of spoilers, so don’t find yourself trapped in this if you don’t want spoiled. Instead, go check out some other reviews here or my review of Ishana Shyamalan’s The Watchers here.
Ok, let’s get right to it. Trap is the newest movie (Experience as he puts it) by M. Night Shyamalan. This was unlike any M. Night movie I had seen before. I kept waiting for the big twist that made him so famous, but it never came. Sure, there were a few turns along the way, but nothing that detracted from the major plot of the story. I liked how the movie jumped directly into it.
Cooper (played by Josh Hartnett) and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) are going to a concert. You can tell that Cooper and Riley have a pretty good relationship and he’s even teasing her a little bit on the way there. They arrive early enough to see Lady Raven (M. Night’s daughter Saleka Shyamalan) get off the tour bus and head inside.
If you have seen the trailer for this, you pretty much know what is going on, but Cooper instantly starts to notice all the security and police covering the building and immediately starts to assess the situation while trying to give his daughter a great evening. While in their seats (on the floor), he starts seeing security grab older men (about his age) and take them away from their seats. By this time, we know Cooper has a man tied up in a basement somewhere and that he is starting to freak out at all the security. At one point, they leave their seat to go get some concert merch and Cooper strikes up a conversation with one of the workers, Jamie (Jonathan Langdon) who offers to save them a shirt since the one they wanted was sold out.
At this point, a lot of coincidental and lucky breaks happen for Cooper…. Almost too many really. As he continues to walk away from his seat (and leaves Riley there to enjoy the show), he meets up with Jamie who allows him to follow him in the back to get a shirt. This is where Cooper is able to grab his employee badge and Jamie spills the beans on literally everything. Including a codeword that only the workers know. Then more things go his way as he makes his way to the roof only to be confronted by more security…and what luck, the apron he took just happened to have the card in it that they were asking about.
Just when he is out of options, Riley tells him that Lady Raven always takes someone on stage with her to dance to one of her songs, then they get to go backstage. Cooper acts fast, finds one of Lady Raven’s staff (M. Night himself of course), and tells a quick lie about Riley recovering from cancer. Of course, they pick her and things are looking up for Cooper until he realizes that they will still have to go through a security check in the back as well.
This is when everything shifts away from the area and starts to move quickly. Also, I will throw in that there was very little of this last act that made it into the trailer, so that was nice. I did see an updated trailer later that had more, but I didn’t see it till after I watched the movie. After he confronts Lady Raven and convinces her who he is, she is forced to take them out of the arena in her limo. She is scared and comes up with a plan to go to their house to try and stop him.
After a bit of back and forth here, he gets away, they have him trapped, he gets away again, and eventually, the “biggest” twist is revealed that his wife had a feeling about what he had been doing and it was her that turned in an anonymous call. He comes back to the house to kill her, and the cops show up on time and take him down. So, all is good, correct? Well, it appears that way until you see him picking the lock on his handcuffs and smiling as the credits start to roll.
So, there was lots to like about this movie. Even though Cooper wasn’t a good person, there was lots of drama about whether he would escape the arena or not. I also enjoyed Lady Raven using her Instagram account to help the man trapped in the basement. What a clever way to include something modern in a thrilling movie. I don’t think that Hartnett is going to win any awards for his acting as Cooper, but the supporting cast was all very good. I particularly liked Jamie. As enjoyable as it was, there was also a lot of not-so-good. The whole ending sequence was a string of good luck choices and a continuation of fortune falling into Cooper’s lap.
Overall, there was more positive than negative, and I found myself anxiously waiting for a big twist that never happened… and I was ok with it. I like that he does that, it keeps us on our toes for all future movies. “Trap” is in no way as good as his older stuff, but it continues a nice trend that tells me he is back to form in making a great film. With that said, I give this a 6 out of 10.
Have you made time to go and see this yet? If so, what are your thoughts? Where would you rank this amongst his other films? I hope you enjoyed this week and I hope you come back next week for another mindless movie review.
