Trap is an unconventional effort from director/writer M. Night Shyamalan. He leans into the expectations in building a captivating suspense film with a mostly satisfying finale.

Shyamalan gets unfairly dinged by critics who impatiently wait for his film’s twists and then get upset when it doesn’t deliver. For Trap, Shyamalan relies far less on a movie-altering twist. Instead, the focus is on the relentless quest to track down a serial killer.

Cooper (a terrific Josh Hartnett) is vying for Father of the Year honors. He’s scored floor seats so his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue) can fangirl out over the Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) concert.

While it’d be an easy layup to scream “nepotism!” to the heavens over Shyamalan casting his daughter as the pop starlet, it’s irrelevant. Saleka Shyamalan can sing and has a genuine pop star presence on the concert stage. And it’s not like he’s asking her to give some Oscar-winning dramatic performance. She just needs to play a pop superstar, which doesn’t feel like that big a stretch given her talent.

With its concert setting, the music is an integral part of Trap and Saleka Shyamalan is a major contributor as she wrote and performed 14 of the songs. The songs were catchy enough to warrant checking out the soundtrack (now available on Amazon).

Cooper quickly notices an unusually high concentration of police and armed security manning the entrances. He’s no fool and deduces they’re on to him. In a smart storytelling choice, Shyamalan doesn’t drag out the big reveal until the end — Cooper is indeed the serial killer the police are on hand to apprehend. The only catch is they’ve got no clue what he looks like just that he’s in attendance at the Lady Raven concert.

Hartnett’s performance is amazing. There are clearly different sides of Cooper at play from the trying too hard to be sweet and kind father making sure Riley has a great time and the calculating mastermind trying to escape this carefully constructed trap. Hartnett is in complete control of both aspects of Cooper’s personality in one of his strongest performances.

Donoghue is also enjoyable as the daughter who is actually appreciative of her father instead of hoping he’ll leave her alone. It makes the inevitable fallout that much more meaningful as the bond between father and daughter is well-earned.

Cooper keeps thinking ahead and avoiding the well-thought-out strategies of the profiler (Hayley Mills) on hand to aid the FBI and police making for some very suspenseful moments. It’s a little weird in the sense how Shyamalan wants the viewer engaged and marveling at Cooper’s strategy all while realizing there’s no good way to root for a serial killer.

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There are some moments that feel like Shyamalan got a little too cute in ignoring basic logic in favor of a more dramatic moment. Some of the concert crowd shots feel too intimate in a way that suggests most of the crowd were filled in via CGI.

The actual concert shots are well staged as Shyamalan places more emphasis on the singing and dancing via the large monitors rather than the stage. This provides more of a feeling of watching a concert onsite as opposed to watching a movie with a concert playing out.

Given the 1 hour and 45-minute run time, it would have been nice for Shyamalan to offer more insight into Cooper’s motives. Yes, Shyamalan provides a cursory rationale of Cooper feeling a monster is inside him and some basic mommy issues, but Trap would have played out stronger with an actual explanation beyond “he’s crazy.”

At the midway point, Shyamalan seems to have that elusive motive lined up in his sights when Cooper mentions that Riley battled leukemia. Cooper’s murder spree being the result of him getting some measure of revenge on the doctors, hospital staff and insurance agents that let Riley suffer could have provided Trap with a more complicated narrative.

As seemingly is his norm, the third act starts to get away from Shyamalan a bit. Fortunately, he can lean heavily on Hartnett to get it back on track. Trap has some problems, but it’s a fun suspense thriller that kept me engaged right through to the credits.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Photo Credit: Warner Bros. 

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