No Joke
M Night Shyamalan gets closer to peak form in his latest psychothriller, and he has Josh Hartnett to thank for that.
Trap
Director: M Night Shyamalan • Writer: M Night Shyamalan
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Hayley Mills, Saleka Shyamalan
USA • 1hr 45mins
Opens Hong Kong Aug 8 • IIB
Grade: B+
Josh Hartnett is one of those actors that for some reason rarely comes up in conversation about great actors in their 40s, and he very infrequently comes up on fantasy casting lists. It’s weird: all the elements are there (youngish, handsome, white), but his active (to outside observers) disinterest in doing the Hollywood thing keeps him on the periphery. Oh, yes, he’s been a key contributor to many turkeys – Pearl Harbor races to mind – but when he gets the right part he’s reliably strong – excellent even. He raised the should-have-been-great 30 Days of Night above its station, anchored the underrated gothic horror series Penny Dreadful, and when he’s not doing conventional fare he disappears into essential viewing like Raoul Peck’s Exterminate All the Brutes. Hollywood’s most blessedly stubborn filmmaker M Night Shyamalan has Hartnett to thank for how well Trap works overall; it’s probably Shyamalan’s strongest film in years. Going into detail about what makes Trap such a trip is tough going given Shyamalan’s brand as the King of Twists, but kind of like he did in Old, and last year’s Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan works best in confined spaces and limited sets. Unfolding mostly at a concert venue, Trap’s conceits are the ideal complement to Shyamalan’s proclivities when telling stories about the horrors of parenting.
But can you guess the twist?
What can be said is that Trap was very loosely inspired by an actual concert trap (Operation Flagship) the popo set up for a bunch of dumbasses with outstanding warrants – except for an NFL game. Also, there were no serial murderers on the hit list. Hartnett plays Cooper, a nerdy, slightly protective dad who takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favourite Swiftian pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, uh-huh, another Shyamalan artist) live in concert. However, it turns out the concert is a set-up designed to snag a local Philadelphia serial killer, The Butcher, or so Cooper is told by merch vendor Jamie (Jonathan Langdon). As we’ve seen in trailers, Cooper is actually The Butcher, and as the concert goes on and on, he starts to obsess over how to get out of the arena undetected, a task made trickier because of the FBI profiler, Josephine Grant (British vet Hayley Mills from the original Parent Trap), on hand to help the Philly PD. And she’s good at her job, because she’s a step ahead of Cooper the entire time, anticipating his every move and thought. The screws are tightened when Lady Raven chooses Riley to be her special guest on stage, something she does at every show. Hold onto your drawers because there’s way more to the story than that, and Lady Raven, it turns out, is cagey AF.
As usual, Shyamalan does a masterful job of dialling up the tension as the minutes tick by; he’s never had a problem establishing an atmosphere of dread and desperation. The entertainment comes from watching Hartnett as Cooper actively trying to maintain his cool demeanour as his best laid plans unravel and the cat-and-mouse game between him and Grant piles on the close calls. Actually, scratch that. It’s his tiny, almost invisible aggressions directed at bystanders that are so grimly hilarious and reveal Cooper for who he is layer by layer, as a killer and as a father. Alison Pill (as Cooper’s wife) and Kid Cudi in a brilliant pop star send-up role as Lady Raven’s mentor The Thinker round out the cast, but Trap is Hartnett’s film. His carefully mannered and intensely controlled performance is a delight, and as was the case in 30 Days he manages to stuff Trap with more guts than it would have otherwise. Is there a wagonload of inconsistencies and/or WTF? moments peppered throughout the film? Does it reach a point where all reason goes out the window and Shyamalan flails for a conclusion? Duh. It wouldn’t be a Shyamalan joint if it didn’t. But Shyamalan’s camera captures grace (Riley letting loose on stage, cameras up) and anxiety (cops everywhere, that nosy mother) equally, and Hartnett makes it worth wading through the M Night mire. And it’s not fuckin’ Borderlands so bonus. — DEK