A trap for the audience

Johnson Thomas

Manoj Night Shyamalan’s latest project, ‘Trap’, has him teaming up with Josh Hartnett, who happens to be on a comeback trail himself. This film is meant to be a white-knuckle suspense thriller laced with black comedy and it works to a certain extent. Shyamalan has not been at the prime of his craft, yet, with ‘Trap’, he manages to eke out a serviceable experience.
Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett), a fireman and devoted dad, wants his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donaghue) to have the time of her life at her favourite pop star’s live performance at a stadium concert in Philadelphia. At the concert where global sensation Lady Raven (Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka Shyamalan) is performing, Cooper discovers cops swarming among the screaming teenage fans. They apparently have set a trap to catch the infamous serial killer known as ‘The Butcher’.
The trailers had already revealed Cooper as ‘The Butcher’ so it’s no surprise to see him getting increasingly agitated while pretending to be okay to his daughter — and all along looking for escape routes from the stadium. The upbeat tempo of the first half makes way for some tension and trepidation. The script has no major surprise reveal. From the moment Cooper realises what’s going on, ‘Trap’ becomes entirely about the bad man caught in a desperate situation, and torn between being a good father and seeking out escape routes. New hurdles are thrown along the way to make Cooper’s desperation skyrocket.
While the treatment doesn’t cut much ice, it’s the visuals that entice and entrap. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom makes the stadium atmosphere fairly claustrophobic. The score by Herdis Stefansdottir and original songs by music star Saleka Shyamalan add noise to the overall mayhem that ensues in the cat-and-mouse chase within closed confines.
Shyamalan’s keen eye for detail ensures that it’s Cooper’s point of view that we are treated to. Josh Hartnett manages to look the part with an everyman ease. Hartnett’s two lives colliding performance is highly engaging. While the dialogues sound pithy and meaningless, the chemistry between Hartnett and Donoghue as the daughter is fairly palpable.
The only reason the audience may root for the bad guy here is because this film is about him and the more hurdles that get thrown his way, the more thrilling it gets for the audience. The plot is pretty chaotic, what with unrequited forays into establishing the family man perception.
The screenplay focuses on the psyche of the brutal killer. The twist has already been spelled out. Cooper ‘The Butcher’ is responsible for the deaths of at least 12 victims. So what we are engaged with here is a wait-and-watch experience of seeing what this desperate sociopath will do to get out of this inescapable mess.
The narrative runs out of steam as the twisty genre film gets caught up in exploiting the trappings of a closed, confined experience. The film, in fact, gets less and less involved as it plods on to its endgame.