'Trap' review: Josh Hartnett can’t escape M Night Shyamalan's nonsensical puzzle box

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

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A killer premise doesn’t equal killer results in M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller “Trap,” which sees Josh Hartnett headlining a studio picture for the first time in almost 20 years. I’m on the record as being a defender of Shyamalan, who I always admire for making original, thought-provoking works that at least try injecting some flavor and variety into the theatrical marketplace. Hence why “Trap,” on paper, had the potential to reflect the earlier stages of Shyamalan’s career, when he was consistently making bangers until, well, Mark Whalberg starts monologuing about bees. 

But even this one gets away from him. Like most of his films, “Trap” asks the audiences to suspend their disbelief and not ask too many questions (which, I can respect and sometimes, as in the case with “Old,” can really turn a blind eye because the body horror elements are gnarly), but not here, “Trap” is one pile of nonsense after the other, especially during the final 45-minutes where it goes completely off the rails into “this would never happen” territory. Defenders will argue this is a movie and it was a choice the filmmaker decided to make. In my experience, it seemed like the wrong one. 

Hartnett plays Cooper, a girl dad who, when the movie begins, is taking his youngest daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert by a Taylor Swift-adjacent pop star named Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan who is actually a really talented performer). But something seems off. The police presence is higher than usual, people are getting pulled out of their seats and questioned, and nobody can seem to leave the premises without getting frisked. Turns out, and this isn’t a spoiler but the premise of the movie, Cooper is a serial killer known as the Butcher, and somehow, the police, who he has eluded for seven years, caught wind that he’s going to be at the concert and are using it as as a backdrop for a massive sting operation to capture him. 

This brings forth all sorts of ridiculous theories and questions, and we watch as Cooper, who conveniently gets a lowly merch salesman to spill the beans on the entire operation, breezily maneuver around the massive arena looking for an exit. The guy manages to get leeway and access to every nook and cranny of the place without much trouble. At one point, he literally walks into a police briefing and nobody in the room thinks to themselves: hmmm could this be the guy?

Not to mention how irresponsible it is for police to trap everyone inside a large venue with a lethal and dangerous serial killer on the loose. And more nonsense creeps in towards the latter half of the movie where Cooper miraculously gets himself and Riley backstage (which we are told is the only exit without a police presence) for reasons that are beyond ridiculous. It’s hard not to reveal more, considering the way in which Shyamalan gets his characters into various domesticated situations in the final leg of the movie, but it’s lazy writing that tries to give Cooper a backstory (hint: it’s mommy issues) to his madness and it lands with a resounding whiff. 

Hartnett, to his credit, seems to be in on the joke. For most of the movie, he brings an endearing, do-gooder (and uncomfortable) charm and you root for him, especially for those of us who have been championing his comeback to mainstream films over the last couple years. He chews up the hokey dialogue as best he can (the conversations he has with a mother of one of his daughter's friends is bigggg cringe). Again, I’m a Shyamalan fan and though his scripts have always fallen on the weird side and never strived for any realism within the way his characters interact (going all the way back to “Signs”), “Trap” still stretches that goodwill a bridge too far. 

Shot on 35mm by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, “Trap” looks and sounds great and I’ll undoubtedly show-up for whatever “experience” Shyamalan cooks up next, but “Trap” is a movie that easily folds within itself. 

Grade: C- 

TRAP is now playing in theaters.