Trap flips the classic cat-and-mouse thriller on its head, telling the story from the perspective of the cat. The plot follows Cooper, who takes his daughter Riley to a “Lady Raven” concert. As they walk to their seats, Cooper notices increased security and soon discovers that the entire concert is a setup to capture a serial killer known as “The Butcher.” The trailers for Trap raised numerous questions: Is Cooper the killer? Does his daughter know? Should we sympathize with him? How did the authorities know he would be there? The first act begins to address these questions while introducing new ones. While some parts in the beginning of the story felt thought out, as time goes on things just happen for no reason, and the audience is just supposed to accept them. Characters would bypass obstacles with little to no rationale, making the crucial turning points feel implausible.
I anticipated this movie to be filled with mind games between Cooper and the police, but unfortunately, the very few we got were disappointing. Not showing how characters would get from place to place or how they learned information resulted in a rushed narrative, leading to a second half that dragged. Although the middle and end of the movie do provide some important exposition, most of it is explained very little. The film’s best moments occur at the concert, and once the setting changes, maintaining interest becomes challenging. The ending is particularly hard to believe, forcing the audience to accept either Cooper has superhuman abilities or the entire NYPD and FBI are incompetent. Without Josh Hartnett’s performance as Cooper, it would be hard not to laugh at some major scenes throughout the movie.
M. Night Shyamalan has a history of writing questionable dialogue that often makes his characters seem unrealistic. However, when your main character is a serial killer trying to present a nice-guy facade, this surprisingly works really well. Josh Hartnett finds the balance between being creepy and socially awkward, which is such a narrow line. Every conversation with him is eerie and unsettling, but never to the point of tipping off the other characters. Without knowing he’s the killer, his dialogue and body language are convincing enough to make you believe he’s just an awkward guy but good at heart. There’s only a handful of people who could have pulled off a role as nuanced as this. Unfortunately, outside of his portrayal, the dialogue in the film still suffers, leading to some unintentionally laughable moments. While unrealistic dialogue isn’t inherently bad, it stands out when juxtaposed with the film’s other technical aspects that are working double-time to make this feel realistic.
The trailers for Trap looked amazing, and the movie only built on that promise, making this by far one of the best-looking movies of the year. Every single shot was impressive, with the colors, lighting, and composition coming together to deliver beautiful shot after beautiful shot. There isn’t a part of this film that looks bad. The camera work did more than just look pretty though, it added some needed context and emotion to the story. The framing brought the audience into Cooper’s perspective as he navigated this elaborate maze. It helped fill some of the gaps felt by lackluster storytelling. However, at times the camera was almost too obvious in trying to show foreshadowing and would hide all the interesting exposition. While a significant portion of the movie features original songs by Lady Raven, played by M. Night’s daughter Saleka, the score would then come in to set the tone when it was needed. This mix of audio worked well to enhance the realism of the concert while still maintaining suspense.
Overall I couldn’t help but be disappointed leaving the theater. With such a great premise it was hard not to be excited. Trap is clearly trying to be more than just another thriller, but when the foundational aspects are given little to no screen time, it becomes hard to care for everything else. Pairing Josh Hartnett with some incredible visuals does make this fun to watch and is reason enough to go see it. With a stronger script and better pacing, this could have been something captivating. Unfortunately, it fell short of its potential, leaving a sense of what could have been.
