Augustman rating for Trap movie (2024) review: 3/5
Genre: Psychological thriller
Trap movie cast: Josh Hartnett, Hayley Mills, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Run-time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Release date: 2 August 2024
What we liked: Josh Hartnett’s storming lead performance, atmosphere
What we didn’t like: The second half was not as tense as the first and contrived plot developments
Plot: A man called Cooper (Hartnett) takes his daughter Riley (Donoghue) to a pop star’s concert, only to find out that it is an elaborate trap to catch him.
There truly is nobody like M. Night Shyamalan in Hollywood… or anywhere for that matter. While he has delivered some outstanding movies with twists that are discombobulating, making us question reality (The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable comes to mind), he is also responsible for movies that are, to put it politely, less than stellar: The Happening (2008) is a good example.
Trap, featuring Josh Hartnett in the lead role, falls somewhere in between his sheer brilliance and his tendency to overcomplicate. Here is the Trap movie review by Augustman.
Spoilers ahead!
Trap review: Is M. Night Shyamalan’s 2024 movie worth your time?
What is Trap all about?
Trap follows a man called Cooper Adams (played by Josh Hartnett) who takes his daughter Riley (played by Ariel Donoghue) to the concert of a celebrated pop singer Lady Raven (played by Saleka Shyamalan, singer-actress and M Night’s daughter). However, the concert, Cooper learns, is a trap to catch a notorious serial killer dubbed simply the Butcher (for his proclivity to chop his victims into tiny pieces). The FBI somehow has information that he is in attendance.
The thing is, Cooper is the Butcher. And fret not, it is not a twist or a spoiler. It is the movie’s setup. What happens next and how Cooper, or the Butcher, reacts to the situation is what makes the bulk of the story.
Trap’s first act is pure gold
First off, the premise of Trap grips you. It is not the most original of ideas, but Shyamalan infuses it with an infectious, pulsating energy and one cannot help but watch it with rapt attention. First, despite what the moviegoer knows about Cooper from the trailers (that he is a cut above the rest if you pardon the corny pun), the film and Hartnett himself fool you for the first half an hour or so. He is shown as a really sweet, doting father who is willing to devolve to the level of a teenager for his daughter’s happiness.
Hartnett is exceptionally convincing throughout the movie, but particularly here. You forget, at least temporarily, the sinister truth lurking beneath his charismatic façade. However, as the movie goes on, his earnestness subtly shifts into menace. It isn’t surprising so much as it is impressive how Hartnett achieves it.
Trap: M. Night Shyamalan’s 2024 movie turns a pop concert into a game of cat and mouse
This high-stakes game of cat and mouse is set in an electrifying atmosphere of a pop concert. Soon enough, Cooper’s charm becomes grating, for the chilling undercurrent of malice in him starts to reveal itself. He may act as a family man and an upstanding citizen, but Cooper’s veneer begins to show cracks. From an adorable, devoted father, he is now a creeping dread.
If serial killer movies and TV shows have taught us anything, it is that these monsters are not just terrifying in their lack of remorse or conscience; they are also smarter than most of us. The reason they evade the law for months, years, or even decades is they are adept at manipulating their surroundings, staying one step ahead of their pursuers, and exploiting their victims’ vulnerabilities. When it appears that his crimes have caught up to him, Butcher becomes an agent of chaos, deliberately causing panic in the concert.
Shyamalan, no stranger to twists and turns and creating a tense atmosphere, ratchets up the suspense to the point that it made me anxious.
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The second and third acts of Trap cannot sustain the thrill of its setup
You know the drill. When a critic praises the first act, it is usually a sign that what follows is abysmal. But I cannot be too hard on a movie where an actor of Hartnett’s calibre employs every ounce of his talent to craft a memorable character even if the script fails to fully support him.
Even as tension at the concert heightens, the film loses momentum and the thrills are undermined by increasingly implausible plot developments — it isn’t enough to completely derail the movie, however.
Josh Hartnett in Trap: The MVP of M. Night Shyamalan’s 2024 movie
Shyamalan hasn’t delivered a single thriller in the last two decades that can even come close to his prime. But even his bad movies are always interesting. They are never completely execrable. For instance, I feel Old (2021) is an excellent chiller that I predict will gain appreciation when we look back at it in, say, 2030. Ditto Knock at the Cabin (2023), though I do abhor that ending.
I feel the same with Trap. Even the early reviews of this movie are mixed, and I fear it will get worse. But it is actually an entertaining, though flawed thriller. Hartnett’s work alone here is worth the ticket price (or your time should you choose to watch it later on a streaming service). He has always had a movie star energy and I am perhaps one of those 10 people who thought he deserved at least an Oscar nomination for the multiple Oscar-winning movie Christopher Nolan movie, Oppenheimer (2023). Here, he is almost effortlessly at dealing with the duality of his character — a good father hiding a dark, murderous secret.
Movies like Trap to watch
I am assuming you have seen all the great Shyamalan’s psychological thriller movies, particularly The Sixth Sense (1999) and Unbreakable (2000). If you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to do so. If you have, I recommend Frenzy (1972), directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock.
I’d ask you to watch Psycho (1962), too, but chances are you have seen it already. Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990), based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, is also amazingly creepy in a similar way.
(Hero and Featured image: Courtesy of IMDb)
This article first appeared on Lifestyle Asia India
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
'Trap' is about a man who attends a pop concert, only to realise that it is a trap to capture him.
No, 'Trap' is not based on a true story.
Currently, 'Trap' is only running in theatres. It will hit streaming services once its theatrical run ends.
