Movies: Trap gets there, but also doesn’t 

The creative mind responsible for adding the phrase “I See Dead People”, from his 1999 horror The Sixth Sense, to the collective consciousness. It is director and writer M. Night Shimalayan.  And he has a new flick on the shelf. It’s called Trap, and it’s a movie that has the potential to take audiences into the fold of an orgasmic thriller. But instead, it gets frustratingly close to being a good ride. Yet it’s popcorn-worthy, nonetheless.

The setup is as crazy as the plot. Josh Hartnett plays firefighter Cooper Abbot who takes his daughter Riley to pop star Lady Raven’s concert. It was a reward for her good grades. The excitement is real for Riley, played by fourteen-year-old Australian Ariel Donoghue.

But while dad and daughter are settling into the show, an unusually high police presence around the venue bothers Cooper. After a brief conversation with a vendor, he discovered that the FBI was staging a manhunt for the Butcher; a serial killer reported to be in the audience. 

Killer’s double life

We learn early on that Cooper was, in fact, the Butcher. And while he was enjoying time with his daughter, he was also monitoring his latest victim, tied up in a basement, on his phone.

Watch: Trap trailer

The first half of the movie paints a picture of the dichotomy between a middle-class family and dad, and the darkness that lingers inside him. Almost like Dexter’s dark passenger. This, as Cooper gets increasingly desperate to find a way out of the arena. A cunning plan eventually sees Riley getting on stage with Lady Raven, the pair get to exit backstage and intros the second part of the narrative. 

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In a chilling confrontation, Cooper takes Lady Raven hostage, in a way, after revealing his identity to her. He used the star to ensure a safe exit for him and Riley. Lady Raven, performed by Shimalayan’ s daughter Saleka, reluctantly complied and ride-shared father and daughter to their home in her limousine. Once there, Lady Raven attempts to subtly reveal Cooper’s identity to his family, agitates him, and secretly informs her fans of his identity. This led to the rescue of the victim he was monitoring on his phone, outing him to his mostly unsuspecting family.

FBI standoff

Mostly, because it was Cooper’s wife Rachel, sweetly played by Alisson Pill, who suspected his dark passenger all along.

Then, there’s a standoff, an FBI raid on his home, and of course, all ends well in the end, with Cooper in cuffs. Well, kind of. 

The tension is there, and Hartnett’s crazed killer is performed very convincingly. Almost too true to what anyone could imagine such a person’s nature to be like. Ariel Donaghue is an actor to keep an eye out on because we’ll be sure to see more of her. Lady Raven’s vacuous pop star façade turns heroine is another layer that arrives well-done. 

As for the rest of the film, it’s a two-halves don’t quite make the whole experience. The pace is so fast that character development gets left behind; depth is sacrificed for accelerated storytelling. But then again, perhaps the movie was not intended to be anything but the dramatic unfolding of a serial killer bagging. Audiences are just left mostly satisfied, with niggly wants for better storytelling in the second half. It just felt like Shimalayan wanted to cram the story into the can towards the end without too much thought on how he can take the audience along for the ride, comfortably.

A film of two halves

Yet, Shimalayan is to thrillers and horror what Tim Burton is to macabre storytelling. And even though some of his films are hard work to watch, others are refreshingly simple, intriguing and often very dark beneath its veneer. He’s a cult filmmaker, and for fans, Trap is another expression of his talent. Because no doubt about it, this director’s cut from the same cloth as some of history’s greatest culturally influential filmmakers. We’ve seen this in his productions like Tales from The Crypt, Lady In The Lake, Gladd and The Village. 

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