From "brat summer" to "trap summer" - 6/10

by Jad Sammour

TRAP is billed as the next “M. Night Shyalaman experience” and it delivers on being an M Night Shyamalan experience. It is a Shyamalan film through and thorough: it has his signature visual style and a story constructed on a singular concept, this time “The Silence of the Lambs at a Taylor Swift concert” - per his words. M. Night succeeds at injecting the serial killer sub-genre with a new take that makes the film standout as a totally fresh and original work of art.

Trap is a fun film with good stretches of thrilling tension and procedural narration. The main synopsis (and what the promotional material shows) is an about the first half of the film, and the rest takes a surprising turn into uncharted territory, best experienced in the moment. To be honest, I expected the entire runtime to be at the concert. I had a lot of fun with the parts at the Lady River concert. They’re told from Cooper’s perspective as we discover with him, almost in real-time the trap he’s in as he tries to figure out escape routes and what he does to try to escape. Josh Hartnett delivers an outstanding performance as Cooper. Spending all the time with him in the concert as he tries to find escape methods, talk to people, infiltrate places and so on, was really fun and enjoyable: how things play out and certainly Josh Hartnett’s performance and line delivery. Now this portion is riddled with conveniences and things happening with ease which can come off as a bit lazy and done to advance the story instead of a logical progression in a realistic manner. At some point, the film subtly switches point of views and we follow the story from another character’s perspective. Unfortunately it is here where the film here becomes slightly underwhelming even though it retains a lot of mystery and tension, but it feels almost like an entirely different film and the central performance from the new POV character is a bit weak. The film’s ending worked, but it became slightly predictable as I saw the final three “twists” coming - this is not a film with a plot twist that will blow your mind and recontextualize the film, but it has some sleight of hand.
As a viewer watching the film, the experience starts as a mundane story and the tension and the mystery keep increasing and you keep sinking into the story, wondering what will happen next. You find yourself rooting for the serial killer, involved in how he will escape, if he will escape, and what will happen. The runtime feels slightly longer than it needed to be. It’s a fun and fresh time hanging out with the protagonist, and this alone is worth the price of admission.

But do you know what else is worth the admission price? M Night Shyamalan. Look, he made some real stinkers in the past, but I still look forward for his projects because he’s one of the few commercially successful filmmakers who tries to give something fresh and new in his films, his artistry shows through, and you are promised an “experience” of something that at least tries to be different and fresh. Trap is no different. M Night wrote a cool screenplay that despite some clunky dialogue, manages to tell a contemporary story using an old sub-genre. M Night’s films have a certain style; he knows what he’s doing. Complementing his work, is the 35mm cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. Both of them decided to frame the film in 1.85:1 and shoot on celluloid instead of digital cameras, giving the film a distinct look with rich colors, grain, and an overall beauty. Shyamalan creates nice compositions utilizing depth (a rarity nowadays), blocking and staging (center frame, extreme left or right), and very intentional camera movement. Not to forget to mention the lighting which takes advantage of the environment and has some contrast, creating visual intrigue and a dynamic image.

Trap’s musical score sounded nice. The pop star, whose concert is the setting of the film, is actually Shyamalan’s daughter. Her music is just 2020s pop music BS, couldn’t care less - but it works for the film and I wish Shyamalan made the singer more of a direct parody of Taylor Swift.

In conclusion, Trap is the fun type of film you’d want to watch this summer. Full of twists and turns, the writer writing himself into corners and then out of them, and a great central performance. Go check it out.

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