High Praise for Shyamalan's: Trap

Today I noticed that M. Night Shyamalan's movie "Trap" is streaming on Max so I decided to watch it. The only name I recognized from the cast is Josh Hartnett, who plays the main character Cooper brilliantly.

Spoiler alert. If you do not want the blab on this film, stop here and just go watch it. Alright, now that I've warned you, I can blab. The film is a thriller about a serial killer (known as The Butcher) who the police are setting up a trap for to catch/stop him for his evil doings. The trap is layed out as a large concert event with the famous loved pop idol "The Raven" played by Saleka Shyamalan. Cooper's daughter Riley is an obsessed fan of "The Raven" and thrilled that her dad has taken her to the concert. It took me awhile to get past the "great dad" idea, but before all the clues were given I did figure out that Cooper was "The Butcher". It's a creepy realization especially when I didn't know that Riley had a living mother (Rachel).

While the suspense and psychological thriller components of the film are well done, I think the artistry of this film is being low-balled per the Rotten Tomatoes (mediocre percentage rate of 57%) and other reviews that seemed to minimalize M. Night's work. I am a fair critic, and although I am a fan of Night's previous films, I am not praising this movie for his previous work.

I say that this film is underrated because not only is the cast impeccable in their performances, but the message of the movie hits hard at this time period and in the midst of a diabolical serial killer plot twist. Don't those fan (atic) s resemble Swifties? Isn't M. Night's timing just perfect regarding framing the "bad guy" (Daddy?) while the whole country is falling apart? It's super deep and dark and twisted, but the message is so important.

Let's take the camera angle off of the villain for a moment and explore the two innocent females: Riley and "The Raven". Riley is just a typical teen obsessing over a pop music idol. Nothing wrong with that, right? "The Raven" is just a beautiful and talented singer bringing love, peace, and joy to the world with her music and concerts because she's "special" and that's her destiny, right? They are both the "victims" ---- and only the horrific serial killer is the monster, right? The deep message of this film is telling me, no, that's not right, look closer.

This film puts a microscope on the phrase "there ain't no good guy or bad guy" and that's a frightening "truth" that isn't often acknowledged. The monster is inside all of us. Also, the title "Trap" is incredibly deep considering that it applies to everyone, not just the concert. The concert may have been set up as the Trap to catch The Butcher, but it has already "trapped" The Raven and her fanatics, even though they are not aware of that.

Distributed by Warner Brothers and released in August 2024, the film had a $30 million dollar budget and grossed about $80 million. I do not consider that a failure at the box office, nor do I agree with the Rotten Tomatoes score. I'd give this movie at least a 90% or 4 stars out of five. My thumbs down goes on the critics who consider themselves art reviewers or fair journalists and did not praise this film at least as nicely as I have.