The greatest strength of the recent films of M. Night Shyamalan has always been in my opinion the simple stripped back quality that they all share, all offering the same sort of single location setting and smaller casts fuelled by the typical high concepts of all of his films, never once so far for me falling unfortunately into the expansive failures of his era immediately following the likes of Signs. Trap is by far my favourite of his in some time and although I have enjoyed aspects of the films that have populated his return to popularity, Trap is by far the first that I have wholeheartedly loved despite its litany of flaws and its unfortunate loss of steam as the whole thing carries on its way.
Trap for the most part is exactly what it says on the tin and of course that tin has been in every trailer and is how the film is being sold, with its fifteen minute reveal marker an early enough plot development to not feel as if the whole film was revealed in the trailer. Instead thankfully Shyamalan has smartly taken what could have easily been a final twist for a simple enough thriller like this and instead shifted it to the very start and made what could have been the extended epilogue of a film last the whole running time. Trap is the most fun I have had with a Shyamalan film in some time and in regards to the films dark humour, some of the most genuine laughs I’ve had in a cinema in an even longer time. After the comedy heights of last years film crop, it seems almost bizarre that the best laughs I’ve had this year thus far are from the machinations of a serial killer played by a glorious Josh Hartnett. For as much as Shyamalan grins and thrills in dripping out as much tension and suspense out of the films run time as he can, the films major success and the thing to be heralded is Josh Hartnett; desperately so. He is so darkly funny, so unsettling at points, so towering and believable and yet so shockingly likeable and caring all at once, making for one of the finest performances of the year and as always pitched in that weird nether liminal space of Shyamalan where one doesn’t know for a good twenty minutes or not whether the performance or the film around it is any good at all. I clicked into Trap’s quality earlier than my normal Shyamalan ratio, with an early dark reveal leading me to laugh with the film from almost the off.
Ariel Donaghue
does great work as Hartnett’s daughter too, with Alison Pitt showing up for the
films extended third act for a pseudo-reveal that works somewhat well but is
mostly propelled by Pill’s great work. Hayley Mills of The Parent Trap shows
up and does fine work, even if it is seemingly very clear that the entirety of
her casting could be entirely down to a funny meta joke. Saleka Shyamalan portrays
the pop-star Lady Raven and does solid work as the pop-star in performance, but
unfortunately is saddled with the weakest aspect of the film for me when this becomes
a film no longer following Lecter escaping Memphis and instead about trying to
stop Lecter – the issue is that we love Lecter and root for his escape after
spending fifteen minutes of screen time with him – and to be frank Hartnett
does such great work and we spend so long with him that after an hour of being
with him, we don’t want him to be stopped anymore. The film’s extended third
act also has far too many stop and start moments leading to a major drop off in
pace, that is resolved somewhat with a griping finale, but does lose a lot of
the good will the rest of the film built up so well.
A 7/10 bristling with flaws at times but overwhelmingly for my money in the right lane to pull off a slick and very, very darkly funny thriller, with some of the best laughs of the year, if not some of the best shocks. The film does for my money take a detour following the first hour that didn’t wholeheartedly work for me and although there was very little rail left on the track for it to continue in the way I was enjoying it, the films shift does lead to a supreme loss of steam. However throughout the whole thing Hartnett overwhelms with major success and gives arguably my favourite performance of the year thus far, he is the writhing core that makes this whole film click into place.
P.S. For the most part I think the original music of Saleka Shyamalan as Lady Raven was actually pretty believable and solid, if not a little average. Overall though it was believable more than not and gave the whole thing a verisimilitude and realism that I can assure you is not something that comes easily to father Shyamalan.
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Thomas Carruthers
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