M Night Shyamalan is back with another effort that forgoes the blockbuster ambitions of his earlier career highlights in lieu of something that aims for the cultural moment. Following on from 'Old' and 'Knock At The Cabin' both forged in this template, Trap tells a low-stakes story that feels wholly designed for our celebrity-loving society.
Taking his daughter to the concert of her favourite popstar turns out to be a mistake for Cooper, a serial killer known as 'The Butcher' when the venue becomes swarmed with FBI agents acting on intel that the killer will be at the concert. With one side eager to make an arrest and the other determined to maintain his freedom, a cat-and-mouse game unfolds during the concert's encore and beyond that his daughter will never forget. Josh Hartnett leads.
Shyamalan's predilection for original storytelling has always set him apart from his peers, with a filmography that, while undoubtedly varied in its quality, can at least boast the benefit of originality. But while Trap is not officially based on pre-existing material, it may as well be, essentially playing as an amalgamation of every early 2000s thriller that would have started and ended its shelf life on the Lifetime network - or, nowadays, on a streaming service or played at triple speed on Tiktok with autogenerated voiceover. Once again penning his own screenplay, Shyamalan's familiar vision but unique perspective is undone by disastrously inadequate writing and a flawed understanding of how both concerts and police investigations work. With painfully stilted and unnatural dialogue arising in each conversation between characters that do not appear remotely dimensional, Trap is a remarkable achievement for all the wrong reasons.
Given the interactivity of various live concerts currently running (namely Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour phenomenon, a major touchstone for the filmmaking team), it's a shame Trap does not capitalise on the spectacle and pageantry that such a setting offers. Shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom - who, for my money, is one the greatest cinematographers working today - we never feel entirely absorbed within the concert experience, lacking an interactive element that would bring a richer sense of excitement to the world this cat-and-mouse game unfolds within. We are frequently watching from a distance, with the tension rarely rising to the levels a thriller should be operating at. Even as we start engaging with the concert on a somewhat more visceral level from the sidelines, the camera's not moving in a way that imbues anything interesting and its atmosphere is never compelling enough to distract from its myriad of deficiencies found elsewhere. There is such narrative and thematic potential here, but Shyamalan (rather unexpectedly given his track record) never appears to mobilise with enough creativity to deliver.
Josh Hartnett's performance is an unhinged turn that would succeed better if the material he was handling was executed with greater stability; instead, teetering around plot holes, narrative contrivances and in a two-dimensional landscape that sees foyers packed with concertgoers during the set, fans lining to by merch midconcert and people seemingly able to disappear into thin air, it's an almost impossible ask. There is an air of discomfort that permeates throughout but it comes not from the rendering of Cooper as an unpredictable, violent man, or Hartnett's horrifyingly disconcerting grin; instead, it's the poor dialogue he is forced to deliver and the unconvincing relationship he shares with his daughter resulting from the poor screenplay they are both contending with.
No one comes to an M. Night Shyamalan venture for realism, and they are much more likely to be enticed by the twists and turns promised, but Trap has neither, and not a lot else, either. Ultimately, too goofy and illogical for any entertainment to be drawn from it, Trap is a frustratingly inauthentic experience that fails to boast a suitably foreboding - or even playful - atmosphere. If it was grounded in something that felt remotely tangible, you could suspend your disbelief and perhaps be swept up in the ride - but the endlessly frustrating contrivances and painfully awkward dialogue render it a devastatingly vapid experience devoid of thrills or charm.