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With Trap, M. Night Shyamalan asks the all-important question: can good dads also be really bad people?

Ghosts, superheroes, aliens, fairytales, found footage, and home invasions are all par for the Shyamalan canon. Enter: the serial killer installment. The film stars Cooper (Josh Hartnett), a cool father who takes his teenage daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to see her favorite singer, and every teenage girl’s favorite–Lady
Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). Cooper’s a bit of a goof, as we see him throw out “jelly” mid-sentence over a snack with Riley. She tells him not to say that again. But he
persists, this time using “crispy”. Critics and audience members alike are always keen to point out Shyamalan’s that’s-now-how-people-talk dialogue. But, you see, that’s the point. Shyamalan, like Alfred Hitchcock (the director he’s most riffing on in this picture), uses his actors as caricatures. Versions of people we know, only exaggerated, to better sustain the story.

What impresses in Trap, is Shyamalan’s restraint in making no scene ever feel too big. Small moments build off each other unwearyingly, as if slow-playing a winning hand in poker. Early on Cooper looks at his phone and reveals he’s holding a man hostage in some basement. And after speaking with an overly loquacious stadium employee, Jamie (Jonathan Langdon), Cooper learns that cops have infiltrated the arena because they expect “The Butcher”, a notorious killer with 12 victims to his name, to be at the concert. Like a rat stuck in a maze, Cooper weasels his way through the entire arena. Onto rooftops, secret SWAT meetings, and so forth; constantly brushing up against the authorities trying to hunt him down, or any dad type figure really, as is made clear. Unlike Jean-Claude Van Damme’s hockey arena traversing cop in Sudden Death, Cooper has no security clearance (until he steals Jamie’s card).

As far as nepo babies go, you can do worse than Shyamalan Jr.’s Lady Raven. Her music has just enough Dua Lipa-ness to make it somewhat tenable, though the last third of the film, mostly due to the acting, is a complete mess. The critique towards it has been that it’s “nonsensical” and “nothing make sense”. That’s just poor rhetoric. There has to be a suspension of disbelief when entering this director’s world and this film, sneakily plays as well as a comedy as anything else. Hartnett, who feels like a not-too distant cousin of James McAvoy’s character in Split (also Shyamalan), is fantastic in his best performance to date. Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills, from The Parent Trap…!), a diminutive figure seemingly running this FBI sting operation, is either the worst profiler or just there for
comedic relief. “He will likely pull the fire alarm to attract attention”, as Cooper, eavesdropping on the walkie-talkie he stole, debates pulling the fire alarm lever.

As a film that involves a good dad trying to show his daughter the time of her life, it’s also a picture of observation, split second decisions, dexterity, and surveillance. Sometimes the best shot is the one just off to the corner (by the drunk lady near the stairs) or off to the side (near the frying pans right behind the counter). Psycho is the film most present here. Not only do mommy complex issues arise but Cooper’s ability, like that of Norman Bates, to shift from genial to demonic with only a smile also wreaks of Anthony Perkins. Towards the end, Shadow of a Doubt becomes the Hitchcock picture to pull from, and here the story unravels as it struggles to build on the momentum from earlier. And yet, there’s still enough muster, mostly due to Hartnett and Shyamalan’s sense of humor, to make this a venerable spectacle until the very end.

Matt Belenky (He/Him) is a Brooklyn based lawyer, indie film producer, Alanis Morissette enthusiast, monster movie lover, and a Coen Brothers devotee. His writing has been featured in The Gutter Review, Massive Cinema, and Pittsburgh Orbit.