Few directors have had more divisive careers than M. Night Shyamalan. After bursting onto the scene with a movie that everyone sees as a classic (even though it is not his first film), Shyamalan showed immense promise, but many thought that promise went largely unrealized.
Thankfully, Shyamalan didn’t give up after his failures, and now he’s back with Trap, a movie that has proven just as divisive as Shyamalan’s career as a whole. The movie, which follows a serial killer who has discovered that he’s fallen into a trap laid for him by authorities, has earned praise and critiques in almost equal measure. Here are four reasons you should definitely check it out.
M. Night Shyamalan remains a master stylist
When Shyamalan burst onto the scene in the late 1990s, it seemed like he might be the next great director. He was hailed as Steven Spielberg 2.0, then went through a pretty epic fall. He made some of the most reviled movies of the past 20 years, and his reputation took a major hit. While calling him the next Spielberg may have been a bit overblown, there was a reason he received such glowing reveals, and it’s on display in Trap.
Shyamalan seems to have an intuitive understanding of where to place the camera to build maximum tension. It was his writing that sometimes got in his way, but now that he’s back to making smaller, simpler movies, his style is shining through. Trap features a number of expertly directed set pieces that take full advantage of the director’s immense skill.
Its silliness is part of the point
When you watch a modern Shyamalan movie, you might cringe at the way his characters talk, or at the overt sentimentality of his premises. Those are fair complaints, and they were a real issue when Shyamalan was working to make heavy, serious movies like The Last Airbender or After Earth. But Trap is perfectly suited for the silliness that was always inherent in Shyamalan’s movies.
Its simple story of a killer who finds himself trapped in a concert arena and has to work his way toward freedom. That B-movie premise is matched by some B-movie aesthetics, but the absurdity of Shyamalan’s writing fits better into this world than it does into the epic tapestries of some of his earlier works.
Josh Hartnett is proving he was famous for a reason
Josh Hartnett was a star as a young man in part because of his good looks, but he didn’t become the kind of superstar that some of his contemporaries did. More recently, though, in part thanks to his casting in Oppenheimer, Hartnett has had a resurgence, and that continues with his starring role in Trap.
One of the reasons casting Hartnett is so brilliant here is that he often played a lovable puppy dog in his prime, and even in Oppenheimer, he’s playing a voice of reason. Here, though, Shyamalan weaponizes Hartnett’s natural charm to suggest that there’s something deceptive and sociopathic hidden just below the surface. Hartnett could have fallen flat on his face in this new role, but instead, he meets the moment beautifully.
It’s got a brilliant premise
One of the reasons Trap is a success is that, like Shyamalan’s past few movies, it has a very simple premise. Hartnett plays a serial killer trapped in a concert venue that has been designed to catch him. Instead of building a world filled with lore, Shyamalan crafts a world that is remarkably simple.
As we’ve already covered, it’s a little bit silly, but there’s still plenty of tension to be wrung out of the premise, and it also means that Shyamalan can get in and out without overstaying his welcome. If this movie felt bloated, it would be its undoing. And while some have thumbed their nose at the third act, part of the movie’s brilliance is knowing exactly when to get out.
