Trap Review: Shyamalan’s ‘A Man Escaped’

Trap is another fresh, creative project by M. Night Shyamalan, fueled by his best and worst tendencies as a filmmaker.

This film, which Shyamalan pitched as “What if Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?”, is very entertaining and has the audience tense during the first half. However, its gripping aspects lose their effect once the Sixth Sense director deviates from the concept he promised.

Trap begins with some earnest father-daughter moments. Cooper (Josh Hartnett, of The Virgin Suicides) and his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), are on their way to the big concert Lady Raven (Saleka) has in store. It’s a highly anticipated show; fans from all over the world have traveled and paid plenty of money to see her. Cooper has gifted Riley tickets as a reward for her excellent report card grades. But something is off; Cooper notices that there are many armed police officers and military surrounding the building, which is ticking him off. He keeps looks around, as if everybody were pointing at him. Lady Raven’s performance’s begins; soon, Shyamalan reveals that Cooper is a wicked, ruthless killer who roams undiscovered.

Cooper has a man chained and locked up somewhere in an undisclosed basement, which he monitors through an app on his phone. The man screams and begs for mercy. Yet Cooper has no room left in his heart to care; the only people he cherishes are his wife and kids. Everybody else is disposable. While trying to get a concert tour tee for his daughter, Cooper asks the charismatic vendor why many armed men are around. The latter tells him that this whole concoction is a “trap”, as the title suggests. Someone tipped off the police that “The Butcher” would be there, and the FBI is on high-security mode to capture him. Cooper remains composed on the outside, but he’s under tons of stress on the inside. He looks around for a way out without having to worry about his daughter, who is having the time of her life.

Cooper goes through employees’ only doors, causes “accidents” that result in severe catastrophes, and even steals keycards and walkie-talkies. This is all to have a chance to escape. We go through the ins and outs of the concert security layout. I immediately began to think about Robert Bresson’s masterwork, A Man Escaped. The film was about a French Resistance Fighter who plans on escaping from prison upon hearing about his execution. Both are claustrophobic pictures about men finding a way out of a sticky situation, where even the minute tools and observations will help them. Shyamalan does not have the legendary Bresson’s breadth and brio, but you see how the 1956 film must have inspired him in the making of Trap.

This cat-and-mouse game is where M. Night Shyamalan excels with Trap. He keeps the audience gripped with anxiety-inducing set pieces. Shyamalan moves through the stadium with great directorial prowess, with the help of cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Memoria, Suspiria), who is one of the best in the business now. They create mental tactics through swift camera movements, like a magnetic split diopter shot and wide-angle lenses. Many of these creative choices are absent in Shyamalan’s previous features. Even decades into his career, he toys with different styles and techniques. I admire veteran filmmakers trying to create fresh cinematic experiences that feel entirely different from the rest of their work. And Shyamalan is one of them that consistently does that. Of course, sometimes it works as a double-edged sword. But he makes sure that you are excited about his projects.

The cherry on top of the sundae is Josh Hartnett. He makes the best out of Shyamalan’s creaky script, which the director says is his fastest written, and it shows. Hartnett does not depict his character as a double-faced man, nor does he hide behind a mask to cover his inner brutal emotions. Instead, he offers a balancing act between campy and self-serious, portraying a serial killer in flux. By providing risible line delivery and facial expressions by the boatload, you question if this is all intentional or a miscommunication between actor and director. But it amounts to a tonally odd performance that helps Trap be quite entertaining… at least for the film’s first segment.

When the movie transitions from the concert venue to the outside world, you notice that Shyamalan does not know what to do next, or how to wrap things up in a nice little bow. The moment he steps out of the claustrophobic cat-and-mouse game, Trap runs out of steam rapidly. Since he is overthinking his next move, Shyamalan decides to indulge in his worst tendencies, some of which fracture the experience whole. Some of these are the “need” to overtly explain each twist to the viewer and drag the story upon its limits. Compared with his other features, these drawbacks are felt more profoundly due to how incoherent and disorganized everything is developed in the second half of Trap.

This conclusion is plotted in a lazy manner that favors neither the actors’ work nor the thematic potential the film contains deep inside its core. While I have been very critical of Shyamalan in the past, my respect for him and his work ethic has increased as I’ve aged. He never settles down to a wavelength or trend. Even if the movie doesn’t work out, you still appreciate what he is doing and are never bothered by his bold swings or genre shifts. Trap is the weakest of the three released this decade. However, Shyamalan carries himself with ingenuity and curiosity about the form that one can only applaud him for.

Trap is now available to watch in US theaters and will be released in UK & Irish cinemas on August 9, 2024.