Before you knew it, M. Night Shyamalan had gone from being a refined “high-end horror” director to being called “the next Spielberg” by Newsweek magazine. I called him. In 2002, he married a man who offered cheap thrills, and it was the best thing that ever happened to him. trap The film follows in the vein of the cheesy films he’s made over the past decade, starting with a self-financed found-footage thriller. visitThe film’s story is tightly centered around a ridiculous premise, but it’s also backed by an incredible amount of heart and soul, rarely slowing down despite all the twists and turns. Simply put, this is a really fun movie.
The film is set mainly at a pop concert and tells an incredibly zig-zag story. trap It might lose viewers eager to pinpoint plot holes and logistical quirks, but that would be missing the forest for the trees: At its core, the film is a surprisingly layered parenting tale that lends itself perfectly to the thrilling goofiness that Shyamalan brings to his 2021 film. old The film is fully committed to sincere melodrama, though its visual and narrative structure are similarly (and purposefully) out of place.
Josh Hartnett compares his new role in ‘Trapped’ to his role as Zeke on ‘The Faculty’
trap It’s good. It might be great. And even if it doesn’t suit your tastes, you’ll probably have a great time anyway.
What is trap about?
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Hey, what’s up? do not have trap about?
Basically, the story is about Cooper (Josh Hartnett), a wealthy Philadelphia firefighter who takes his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donahue) to a concert by her favorite pop star, only to discover that the concert is a trap set to catch him – in fact, he’s actually a notorious serial killer known as “The Butcher.”
That’s all you need to know before you see the movie, which is surprisingly spoiler-free. Long gone are the days when big twists mattered in even Shyamalan’s most celebrated work. Despite his reputation, that only happened in three or four of his 16 feature films, as he proved far better at telling stories with numerous successive twists. But perhaps the biggest twist in the movie is trap That being said, at its core it’s a thoughtful father-daughter story.
trap It’s a film about a girl’s father.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
The story is about Cooper discovering the extent of the police investigation and slipping through the cracks he finds, but what makes it feel so urgent, and why he can’t just run away, is that he really does care deeply about Riley. She’s had a hard time at school being bullied, and seeing the light in her eyes when she sings and dances is the ultimate gift to him. Cooper may want to find his way out of the labyrinthine concert venue, but he doesn’t want to arouse her suspicions and he needs to make sure she’s having a good time.
So if the trailer didn’t make the premise weird enough, this is also a girl-and-father movie in the saccharine, sentimental sense: after all, the central pop singer Lady Raven happens to be played by R&B artist Saleka (Shyamalan’s daughter), who appears frequently on screen (not to be confused with his other daughter, Ishana, who directed). Watcher this year). trap While the film is essentially an ode to his daughters and their teenage years, it also tackles the darker implications of fatherhood and, at times, seems to challenge what it means for a daughter to challenge a man’s view of the world — and himself.
meanwhile trapIt’s fun to see the rare sight of a Western pop star of South Asian descent. Cheeky SummerThe film has plenty going for it, including the appearance of British Asian sensation Charlie XCX, but Sareka’s inclusion is no gimmick. Shyamalan is of course keen to highlight her musical talent, but the young singer-songwriter is an unexpectedly important (and brilliant) presence, a bastion of aspirational goodness in stark contrast to Cooper. Shyamalan paints Cooper’s daughter as a symbol of absolution, suggesting fans point their cell phone flashlights at her in the name of forgiveness and acceptance. When the film occasionally delves into Cooper’s past, she doesn’t stick to these characterizations. It’s a moving metatext, made all the more tragic by the fact that Cooper is constantly trying to escape Lady Raven’s orbit, trying to turn innocent bystanders into his pawns.
Perhaps there’s no better place to wrestle with everyday misogyny than a pop concert aimed at teenage girls, and the film takes this idea with surprising deftness. Cooper endangers several young women and girls to distract them at the concert, and doesn’t seem to take Lady Raven very seriously (this is his biggest folly, Shyamalan, you good-natured old man). Protecting Riley from bullies may be just as important to him as evading the police, but he also has violent misogynistic tendencies on a daily basis. One gets the impression that Cooper might bring up an excuse like “As a father of a daughter…” as if it were a bargaining chip to stay out of prison.
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trap It’s a game of cat and mouse, with the mouse leading the way.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
but, trap This isn’t a moralizing film — it’s far too mischievous for that — but rather uses Cooper and Riley’s relationship as a kind of rubber band. Cooper often leaves her behind to enjoy the show while he searches for the exits of venues, like a serial killer 007, and you can’t help but root for him every time he evades security and pulls off a little heist. But his role as chaperone means that no matter how much he progresses, he always ends up back with Riley.
As the police presence increases, Cooper tries to figure out their strategy. It’s a game of cat and mouse in which the Mouse has the advantage (the police don’t know what the Mouse looks like). Supporting characters divulge their information with surprising candor, partly because he’s charming but also because it serves the plot, and as soon as an existing one is thwarted, a new one seems to arise to slip out unnoticed. Some of these escape strategies are absurd, like Cooper trying to get a backstage pass or a lead artist inexplicably appearing through an absurdly placed trap door (though it’s not exactly a joke).Hehe).
But Shyamalan has a secret weapon in particular: the talents of Josh Hartnett.
Josh Hartnett’s sophisticated, operatic performance trap Steadily
trap For Hartnett, Shyamalan Split What James McAvoy Did: Both films give their actors outrageous material that allows them to show off their unexpected talents. Hartnett and McAvoy play their parts as over the top as anyone, and have a ton of fun doing it.
For Hartnett, this first layer of fun comes in the form of well-meaning dad jokes and an awkward delivery that hints at a certain pretense. Shyamalan’s dialogue is never polished or naturalistic, but here the flourishes ring with purpose. During the fleeting exposition, it feels powerful, allowing Cooper to create a detailed roadmap to his origins through allusion, charting his daily life with words alone. It also creates a sandbox for Hartnett, in which he navigates polite social platitudes and laces them with sly undertones that underscore his character’s mask of white, suburban, middle-classness. The actor manipulates Cooper’s friendly facade with precision, winking at the audience while luring other characters with his charm.
trap The film tells the gradual failure of a typical American father trying to balance work and life while hiding his addiction to blood. The film is not particularly interested in the psychology of a serial killer, nor in the actual methods of murder or the killer’s sordid beliefs. Dexter or Criminal Mind — trauma, motivation, trophy, and more. But the film is also deeply concerned with the mask of normalcy that Cooper wears.
The film revolves around the question of what it means to be a father to a man with such terrifying, secret impulses. This theme echoes Shyamalan’s desire to make horror movies, as if he were pointing the camera at himself. But this self-reflection is more of a reflex than a linear conclusion. Hartnett is far from a Shyamalan avatar; rather, he seems to embody the essence of Shyamalan films, which tend to wrestle with beliefs about the world and oneself.
In the process, Cooper embodies the psychological battle that Shyamalan’s films have forced him to fight late in his career. after earth, oldand Knock on the hutThese films ask what parents need to do to protect their children from the world – and from themselves. trap So too. But while it’s a thoughtful piece of work, what makes it so great is how it ruthlessly uses themes of family and fatherhood as fuel for a truly riotous thriller.
trap It’s a propulsive visual adventure.
Shyamalan is responsible for trap Equal credit must be given to cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Thai master of writing and directing. Uncle Boonmee Luca Guadagnino’s The ChallengersShyamalan’s thriller would never have had the same impact without Mukdiprom’s evolved visual tricks and use of space.
While the film begins with a sense of wide-open possibility, Lady Raven’s performance is always portrayed as distant; her shows are always viewed, literally and figuratively, from Cooper’s perspective as something far away, something he can’t understand (or really care about). But the film unfolds with surprising intimacy, twisting its geography so that all the walls feel like they’re closing in on Cooper. Grand piano And that Opera Scene in Mission: Impossible – Rogue NationMukdiprom compresses the space with techniques like split diopters when it feels like the authorities are nearby, and whenever Cooper finds some kind of escape route, he reacts instantly with awkward framing that overemphasizes the emptiness. The film all but controls your breathing with an aesthetic that feels alternately claustrophobic and oddly reassuring, and you’re left rooting for the man to return to his hobby of dismembering innocent people.
trap The film also perfects its use of close-ups, which get tighter and more uncomfortable as the film progresses. Every time Hartnett enters the frame, Mukdip Lom lights him in a slightly creepy way. There’s nothing obviously “wrong” with Cooper, but his eyes are a little hard to see in the shadows. He comes across as a little too duplicitous, or a little too asymmetrical, which your brain may only subconsciously pick up on.
I feel something offIt’s similar to how cinematographer Michael Giourakis makes camera movements feel natural in Shyamalan’s films. oldIn this case, what is most puzzling is the inescapable silence, which is both fascinating and eerie: you can’t look away, but you don’t want to look away either. trap The film is full of these opposing dichotomies – after all, this is the story of a serial killer who finds his way out of a jam like a wounded animal, only for the love of his daughter, but the clever shifts in perspective make it tense, tragic and downright terrifying, thanks to Hartnett’s performance and Shyamalan’s allegorical approach to perpetuating the vicious cycle of bad parent-child relationships.
But his masterpiece, through all its thematic and tonal shifts and all its outlandish narrative escalations, trap The film remains remarkably consistently funny, colliding head-on between laugh-out-loud dramatic irony and a sincere father-daughter tale in the most messed-up package.
trap It’s currently in theaters.