M Night Shyamalan's Trap (2024) - CB - S5EP01

Cinematic Brotastic Movie Podcast

Trap (2024)

A father named Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) are going to a Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) concert. She's equal to a Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift type Pop Star. We quickly learn that Cooper has a secret, and that the concert was all a set up to find a serial killer. He must play dad and evade capture at the same time.

Trap was the first movie I got excited about that wasn't part of some huge franchise. There was nothing preceding this that I could rely on, other than my love for M Night Shyamalan movies, and even some of those haven't been really reliable lately. An original movie, low budget compared to the big franchises. It was the concept that really sold me.

What makes this movie's concept really interesting is that the concept is not just the "Serial Killer in a trap at a concert," but also, M Night Shyamalan's daughter wrote and produced an entire album of music for the film, played the music of the film, performed a concert for the film, and acted as a character in the film. And when you listen to it, it actually sounds good too. She wore many hats for this film, and that was a concept that I fell in love with personally.

Saleka's music as Lady Raven fits the mold of the pop music it is meant to emulate, creating a believable concert for a pop sensation that teens and tweens can get really excited about. I hope there is a special feature or behind the scenes documentary that goes into more detail on how this was accomplished.

Past that Josh Hartnett's performance as Cooper/The Butcher is one of the best things about this movie. He plays the duality of his role as father and killer well. Especially as the pressure increases and the line starts to blur a bit, and he starts to lose control. I've always been a fan of Hartnett, He's been working but has reentered the zeitgeist with Oppenheimer, and now Trap. I am excited to see what he has in store for us next.

M Night Shyamalan's Trap is not his greatest film, but don't get me wrong, it still is a good one. The Happening was a low point for him, and Old and Knock at the Cabin were good, but there were some aspects that just didn't work for me. This movie everything worked: the premise, the performances, the music, the motivations, and the story. I only have two criticisms. I felt that some things moved a bit too quickly. I would've liked it to be drawn out a little bit more. A good example of this is that we find out that Cooper needs to get backstage. I don't feel like the tension of "how does a regular person get backstage of this huge concert?" played out enough. We find out that he needs to, and then boom, the solution presents itself. The solution by all means was a good one, but it would've been nice to see some more panic or planning before that was revealed.

And then there was a character that I don't really understand why she was in the movie. There's a woman who is the mother of one of Riley's friends. There was a falling out, and she's trying to put things back together by talking with Cooper about it. IT doesn't really go anywhere, and it leaves me to wonder if there's a subplot that was taken out of the movie. It gave him a reason to run into someone outside to be an obstacle, which is fine, but then we see them inside during a specific moment, that if it was removed, it wouldn't have hurt the story.

I personally can't stop thinking about this movie. I've been listening to the fake "Lady Raven" album on repeat in my car. These are songs that are aimed at teenagers, and here I am blasting it in my car on my way to work. There is one question I have that we won't know for a while, and that is if M Night will push to have one of these songs considered for an Oscar. I think that would be really cool.

2 tickets