'Trap' briefing

3 (out of 4)

            “Dad I'm concerned, why are we making a movie about a teenage girl with a serial killer for a father prominently starring me, your teenage daughter?”

So Saleka Shyamalan, eldest daughter of M. Night, appears a touch more talented than Ishana Shyamalan, who devised this summer's The Watchers the kookiest supernatural horror premise about evil woods and nocturnal people-peeping monster-voyeurs? The fuck? The younger Ishana served as a second unit director for her father’s last two films and directs her more pop-star-aspiring sister’s music videos. Saleka is more than commendable and thankfully her real-life persona bleeds naturally enough into this movie’s fascinating escape-thriller father-daughter dynamic. Based on the one featured single credited to her at least and the bits of performance onscreen, she has songwriting skills, and fine enough chops in acting and singing. Sure, she very nearly nepo-baby’s her way to commandeering the screen, her all too righteous character tailored for a prolonged Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

I probably prefer the philosophy and more airtight bottle structure of Knock at the Cabin, but Trap is arguably another step in M. Night’s revival — I say he’s still back baby, one more and it’ll be a renaissance. Such a comeback was hinted at in the farce-forward found footage thriller The Visit, still Trap is capably put together even if it’s too indulgent to be swift and tidy. Josh Hartnett’s hidden two-face is outta the stadium within an hour, and after exploiting the cold-blooded cat and mouse concert setting, the film leaves you wondering how they’re gonna fill up an act and maybe then some over the course of the extended finale in search of a climax. At its most lazy and regrettable, Shyamalan spins his wheels a little too generously with offscreen asspulls forcing you out of killer’s perspective merely for convenience.

But gosh darn it, ignoring silly monologues and protruding plot contrivances, Trap is pure De-Palma-does-Hitchcock gratisfaction, M. Night’s Snake Eyes (from Gary Sinise’s POV in this scenario), a consistently absorbing, split-diopter-stocked, deeply Shyamalanian (peripherally Pennsylvanian) affair of less is more filmmaking wizardry, flat character oddities and some dodgy dialogue. All that backhanded praise is counterbalanced by the SHEER FLIPPING WILLPOWER of Hartnett, who even leaning completely into the campiest idea of the family man/secret serial killer dichotomy somehow comes out the other side incomparably unscathed, particularly when measured against James McAvoy’s mugging, untenable travesties in Split. Young Ariel Donoghue as the unwitting, holiday picture of a daughter sells the love, and the underappreciated Alison Pill as the suspicious madre also saves the day in more ways than one.

For late summer servings this is one spicy meatball, a real old-school thriller that doesn’t require a classic M. Night last minute yank on the rug to be memorable or tie things together — the twists come along with delicious punctuality, as well as laughs genuine and unintended. It could’ve been sad or funny walking into a movie called Trap and getting stuck listening to a set of zoomer pop music, the kind with triplets or whatever, that garbage Ariana Grande sound. Trap does indeed smell a little fishy and is very nearly a bait and switch, but really its just good fun, making it the bees frickin’ knees after a mostly craptastic summer.