M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film “Trap” seems willing to be trapped along with its hero for a while during its first half. As its hero tries to get away from his increasingly claustrophobic circumstance, the movie steadily dials up and down the level of tension for our entertainment, and we gladly go along with its naughty fun, but then the movie lets down us a lot as suddenly loosening its tight grip on us during its problematic second part. 

At the beginning, we meet Cooper (Josh Hartnett), an ordinary family guy who is taking his adolescent daughter to a big concert of a famous pop singer named Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan, who is Shaymalan’s another daughter besides that filmmaker daughter of his). While his daughter is quite excited about the concert just like many other young fans entering the stadium where that concert will be soon held, Cooper understandably looks rather disinterested in contrast, and he gets more distracted when he comes across the annoying mother of one of his daughter’s schoolmates.

Meanwhile, as going inside the stadium, Cooper begins to notice something odd. There are lots of security guards and police officers placed here and there inside the stadium, and it also becomes clear to him that the stadium is heavily surrounded by more police officers outside. When he later asks a stadium employee about what is going on, the employee tells him that the police is looking for a notorious local serial killer nicknamed “the Butcher”, who has already killed no less than 12 people.

Cooper becomes quite alarmed for a good reason, because, well, he is actually the one the police is searching for. As a matter of fact, this is not much of a spoiler because his true identity is revealed within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and its promotion poster does not even hide this ‘surprise twist’ at all as shown from the tagline (“30,000 fans. 300 cops. 1 serial killer. No escape.”).

As the camera of cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who previously did a stellar job in Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” (2024) early in this year, fluidly follow its evil hero. the movie accordingly attempts to build up suspense as Cooper attempts to evade the police search in one way or another. While he manages to remain one or two steps ahead the police for now, his opponents keep getting closer to him minute by minute as blocking almost all of possible way outs inside the stadium, and he must also pay some attention to his daughter, who slowly begins to sense something wrong about her father even though her mind is mostly occupied with the ongoing concert.    

However, instead of bringing more tension to this intense cat-and-mouse game, Shyamalan’s screenplay takes a left turn in the middle of the story. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you instead that the movie shifts its focus from Cooper around that point, and that is where the movie unfortunately comes to lose its narrative momentum. It provides several competent moments including an unnerving sequence where a certain supporting character must be very careful about whatever Cooper may do next in front of her and others at the spot, but these moments are less thrilling compared to the claustrophobic suspense of the first half, and the eventual finale is pretty contrived to say the least.       

Nevertheless, the movie is carried fairly well by the commendable efforts from Josh Hartnett, who seems to be about to have an unexpected career resurgence as appearing in a number of recent notable films including Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” (2023). Although I still remember how forgettable he was Michael Bay’s disastrous war drama film “Pearl Harbor” (2001), he is a good actor capable of many other things including Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” (2001), and he shows here that he can be alternatively charming and cunning as he was in Tim Blake Nelson’s “O” (2001). Although Cooper is quite an unpleasant character to say the least, Hartnett steadily holds our attention as his character smartly handles one obstacle after another while busily keeping looking for any possible way out, and he also bring some sense of dark humor to his character at times. 

In contrast to Hartnett’s diligent efforts, most of the other cast members in the movie simply fill their respective spots without much to do. Ariel Donoghue is suitably plucky for her role, but she becomes quite under-utilized as her character is eventually put aside later in the story. Although two certain famous pop singers appear to support her, Saleka Night Shyamalan is still not as charismatic as, say, Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, and she struggles more than once when her character becomes more substantial along the story. While Alison Pill is mostly stuck with her thankless role, Hayley Mills, a British actress who has been mainly known for the 1960 Disney film “Pollyanna” (She received the Academy Juvenile Award for that, by the way), brings a little touch of class to the film even though her character is more or less than a tool for several obligatory moments of exposition.

In conclusion, “Trap” is not entirely a failure mainly thanks to Hartnett’s compelling performance and Shyamalan’s competent direction, but the movie could be tauter and more intense in my trivial opinion. Sure, this is not as bad as “The Last Airbender” (2010) or “After Earth” (2013), but Shyamalan can do better than this considering some of his several recent works such as “Knock at the Cabin” (2023), and I can only hope that he will soon move onto better things to come after this flawed genre piece.