Trapped by M. Night Shyamalan

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By now, we all know that every film by writer-director M. Night Shyamalan comes with a spoiler alert. His latest, Trap, is no different, but this time the first reveal comes early.

Trap begins with Philadelphia firefighter Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) driving to a concert with his teen daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue). The performer, Lady Raven (the director’s daughter, Saleka Night Shyamalan), is a pop idol of Swiftian proportions for a mostly female teenage audience. Riley sings along to one of Lady Raven’s wispy pop tunes on the way to the show, and when they arrive at the arena, Cooper lifts her onto his broad shoulders, giving her a glimpse of the tour bus. When Lady R emerges, screams erupt from the crowd. She favors her fans with a smile and a wave.

The father-daughter chemistry is realistic and positive, with no visible trauma. Cooper is affable, tolerant of the music and only slightly flummoxed by the changing times and the Gen Z vocabulary. “Crispy” puzzles him. Why not deep fried? “This is literally the best day of my life,” Riley gushes. But the arena is ringed by tactical units, cops are covering every exit, and Cooper grows increasingly shifty. In the privacy of a men’s room toilet stall, he pulls out his phone to watch a live camera from a basement where a man is chained to a support beam. Cut to a convoy of black FBI vehicles descending on the arena. And who’s that grey-haired woman who appears to haunt Cooper. By this time, Cooper’s sneaky grin and narrow eyes are reminiscent of an infamous cinema dad, the one Jack Nicholson played in The Shining.

It's beginning to look as if Cooper is “The Butcher,” a nasty and most-wanted serial killer. Turns out that the Lady R concert is an elaborate trap set to catch The Butcher, but Cooper is cunning and quick. Will he find his way out of the arena? Can he outwit the FBI’s erudite-sounding profiler, Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills)?

Trap nods at several prevalent contemporary themes, including the aloneness of kids in our “connected” world (Riley has been “excluded” by her peers) and the unhealthy fascination with true crime as expressed by an arena vendor, Jamie (Jonathan Langdon), “obsessed” (his word) with The Butcher. There is also subtle humor, including cops who turn down the offer of donuts. Shyamalan imaginatively stages Lady R’s concert, whose production blurs what’s real with what’s virtual. He even includes a lame opening act that no one is especially interested in hearing. Will Lady R mobilize her fans to catch The Butcher?

With Trap, Shyamalan is an Alfred Hitchcock for our times, building a fun, fast moving thriller out of flimsy material. And like the old master of suspense, he even makes a cameo.