Trap is the latest thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and it requires a massive amount of suspension of disbelief to get any measure of enjoyment. Josh Hartness is in the lead as Cooper, a seemingly doting and average father who is taking his daughter to a concert put on by the pop star portrayed by Saleka Night Shyamalan. The cast also includes Ariel Donoghue, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, and Jonathan Langdon.
Cooper is a loving father and is accompanying his daughter to a major concert and notices an unusual amount of security. An indiscreet booth worker informs Cooper that the whole venue has been turned into a trap for a notorious serial killer who is believed to be attending the concert. It’s not a major spoiler to reveal that Cooper is indeed the target of all of this attention. The problem is that the police and FBI agents really have no information regarding his identity. Cooper begins an effort to engineer his escape without ruining his daughter’s night. He also has to outwit a supposed master profiler played by Mills. This sounds like a pretty intense plot and should be kind of fun to watch.
The problem is that the basic premise is more ridiculous that most of Shyamalan’s ideas. This is the guy who did a movie about invading aliens who attacked a planet this is made mostly of water, which was their kryptonite. Anyway, the whole concept was kind of silly and seemed to be lacking any effort to discover what police would actually do in this situation.
In spite of the distraction of a very weak plot, there was a couple of bright spots. M. Night’s daughter actually is a pretty decent actress. There was quite a bit of her musical talents on display, and the concert scenes were fine. She apparently wrote the songs that were performed, and she is not noticeably terrible as a pop performer. The performances from the cast overall were actually pretty good. I guess they were making the best of a pretty bad story premise. It was cool to see Hartnett in a major film role. The chemistry between him and the daughter played by Donoghue seemed pretty genuine. The casting is something to which I have no real objection.
I guess I can buy Hartnett in the part of a serial killer, who is the master of wearing the mask of normalcy, but the whole concept of the FBI trying to track him in an audience made up of about 20,000 people just seemed so ludicrous. Although there may be some good reasons to question the competence of our federal law enforcement agencies these days, I am doubtful that they would engage in a maneuver like the one depicted in this film.
Shyamalan often has some interesting ideas, but this is one of those films that misfires too noticeably to be forgiven easily.
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