The following review contains spoilers that were revealed in the trailer.
The biggest twist in M. Night Shyamalan’s latest, Trap, is that there is no twist. I mean, there are plenty of surprises along the way, but the central premise—that our normie suburban dad protagonist, Cooper (Josh Hartnett), is in fact the knife-wielding serial killer nicknamed “The Butcher”—is established right away.
I’m trying to imagine what the film would be like if we didn’t know this fact, if we simply thought Cooper was a caring dad who had taken his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to a Lady Raven concert only to discover that the show was doubling as a massive manhunt for The Butcher. If we worried that Cooper and Riley might come into to contact with this maniac. If we feared for their lives?
But no, the trailer makes it quite clear that Cooper is our guy. Knowing this adds a meta layer of humor to the film, even before the (relatively swift) reveal. For example, it’s funny out of the gate when Cooper refuses to speed to the concert, telling Riley, “We’re not going to break any laws!”
Indeed, Cooper seems like nothing more than a doting dad, learning teen slang (“crispy” means good, but no, “extra fried” doesn’t mean very good, Dad, duh) and proudly recording Riley’s dance moves on his phone (she knows all the Lady Raven choreography by heart).
But he starts to notice a massive police presence and gets twitchy. He befriends a T-shirt vendor named Jamie (Jonathan Langdon, giving great everyman) and asks him what’s up. Jamie leans in, conspiratorially, and says that he’s not supposed to say anything, but the whole concert is actually a set-up to catch The Butcher. Cooper’s face goes white.
He then immediately checks a live feed on his phone of some poor schmuck named Spencer whom he has trapped in a basement.
Yup, he’s The Butcher.
From there, it’s a cat and mouse game, as Cooper tries to evade the police (they have every exit covered and are also randomly hauling in fathers in for questioning) while also trying to keep up happy appearances with Riley, who is having the time of her life.
Finding out that our apparent hero is actually a stone-cold killer puts the audience in a strange spot. For a while, at least, we find ourselves rooting for Cooper to escape—and we’re entertained by his clever evasions and diversion tactics.
And the humor, now mixed with a kind of underlying menace, continues throughout. Cooper is confronted by an aggressively flirty PTA mom whose daughter has snubbed Riley. Will Cooper murder her to avenge his daughter (or simply because she’s annoying)? Later, Cooper finds himself alone in the storage room with Jamie, who is opening boxes of T-shirts. “Here, hold this,” Jamie says, handing Cooper the box cutter. Dude just handed The Butcher a box cutter!
Shyamalan directs all this like the pro he is, taking us from the swirling activity on the stage to the jam-packed stands to Cooper’s paranoid face as we watch him make split-second calculations whenever he encounters a new threat.
As for the actress playing Lady Raven? Earning her spot on the Mount Rushmore of nepo-babies, she’s none other than Saleka Shyamalan—yup, M. Night’s daughter. (Arguably the man created an entire film to give her a chance to perform). But here’s an actual twist: she’s good. In fact, compared to the fake boy band in The Idea of You (which I liked!), she’s quite believable. And she wrote all the film’s catchy, radio-ready songs. Some families get all the talent. Saleka is a bit less successful in the latter part of the film when she gets off stage, not necessarily because she’s a bad actress (time will tell) but because the film’s final act is laughably preposterous. The less said about it, the better.
Still, that first hour is tight—tense, funny, scary. Edge of your seat stuff. And Hartnett is great here—turning on a dime from dear-old dad to psychopath in wildly entertaining fashion. I am so here for the Harnett-aissance. It’s also wonderful to see Hayley Mills—yes, that Hayley Mills—as the FBI profiler who can anticipate The Butcher’s every move. She mentions, in passing, that The Butcher probably has OCD. About half an hour later, we see Cooper fastidiously fix a lopsided towel in a bathroom, even as he’s on the run. It’s that kind of attention to detail that makes Trap so satisfying. Turns out, knowing who The Butcher is the whole time makes for killer fun.