Trap - You're Stuck

A trap isn't a trap if you know the trapper's trying to trap you. It's a face off.

The oddest of quotes from Guardians 3, but it really fits here.

M. Night Shyamalan has been making movies for three decades. His earlier hits like Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense, and Signs brought his name to the mainstream. He told complex stories with a twist ending. So much so it became his thing. As the years went by, his movies became more hit and miss.

I've only seen The Lady in the Water once and that was enough. It lacked, to me, the fire of his earlier works.

Most of his movies are a slow burn. We're introduced to the characters, the rising event that catapults the story. They're quiet, but with an element of mystery to it. HIs style isn't for everyone, but you can't deny he's good at what he does as a director.

Trap is about a father who takes his teenage daughter to see her favorite singer, Lady Raven. As he arrives, he notices a large presence of police and SWAT and other first responders. The needle drops on the mystery when its revealed to father that the concert is a trap for a vicious serial killer...and he's the killer.

Josh Hartnett plays the father Cooper, the killer caught in the trap. But now that he knows it's a trap, it becomes a face off. He spends the movie trying to figure out how he can escape. He's there with his daughter, who doesn't know about his misdeeds; there are cops at every door, police are checking every single man that's there.

He is trapped with little to no chance of escape. You feel his tension and you sit there watching, wondering how he's going to get out of this. While at the same time, you WANT him to get caught because he's a very bad person.

He plays the normal, regular joe dad. As the movie progresses, he becomes more and more desperate. That's when you start to make mistakes. His daughter thinks its a normal fun concert and is having the time of her life, not knowing what his father's been up to the entire concert.

Overall, it was good movie. You feel the intensity as the movie progresses. He feels more and more trapped doing everything he can think of to escape. I don't think there were any "twists" as I've seen over the years with his work. Not in the usual sense.

It worked as a mostly thriller, but there was a mystery to it. Would he get caught or would he get away? How did the police find out he was going to be there?

The music was good. Lady Raven was played by M. Night Shyamalan's daughter (so, a little bit of nepotism in this). Not going to go out of my way to listen to the soundtrack cause its music isn't really my style. But she has a great voice and was integral to the climax of the movie.

The concert element no doubt made shooting a bit of a nightmare. So, props to M. Night for pulling it off. While the concert scenes themselves weren't much (Cooper skulking the corridors of the venue trying to find a way out are most of it). A full venue for a shoot like this couldn't have been easy. Weeks of having extras there for the crowd scenes and shooting all the angles of a concert.

Story and intensity worked. Built suspense. It's a movie you should watch at least once for the visuals and how each scene builds on the last.

4/5