“Smile 2” digs into the backstage life of a pop star, but “Trap” did it earlier in the year. The point of both: there’s a killer lurking in the audience.
Hartnett
In the case of “Trap,” the danger is a serial killer in a sea of pre-teen and teenage girls.
Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan sends a father and daughter to a Philadelphia arena where they’re going to see her favorite artist, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), a Taylor type who has an endless concert with ample opportunities for ticketholders to leave their seats.
There are so many breaks you wonder if anyone is left in the arena. Dad (Josh Hartnett), though, is looking for a way out (aren’t all dads?). He chats up the merch guy, gets his ID, checks into the employee lounge and discovers there’s a plan to trap the serial killer, called “The Butcher.”
People are also reading…
Why a guy named “The Butcher” would go to a concert (in the afternoon, no less), is anyone’s guess, but it means fewer men to search on the way out.
Early on, we get the suspicion Hartnett’s Cooper could be hiding something. He makes those “V for Vendetta” faces every now and then and constantly comes up with excuses to leave daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) alone.
Josh Hartnett, left, and Ariel Donoghue star in "Trap."
Sure enough, there’s reason for dad to devise an exit strategy.
Hayley Mills turns up as an expert who knows how serial killers act. She advises plenty of people (mostly with her back to the camera), then becomes a player in the final third of the film.
Shyamalan has plenty of plotholes where this could fall in. Riley, for example, gets a chance to go on stage as the “Dreamer Girl.” But if she hadn’t been picked, dad’s next moves would have to be rethought.
Similarly, when he gets in proximity to Lady Raven, Cooper becomes one of those pests every singer must hate. He keeps asking for more and even gets a moment alone with her in her dressing room. From experience, we can tell you this WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. No matter who wants a private conversation, there’s always a handler nearby.
Still, that sets up the escape route and brings “Trap” to the family's home where much transpires like an installment of “Scream.”
Hartnett doesn’t really fit the Anthony Perkins mode, but he gets more lines here than he has in countless other films. He’s good at pivoting but he’s also good at making a child cringe. When he goes over the line, “Trap” becomes a typical horror film with “Sixth Sense” pretensions.
That Shyamalan created that original “a-ha” movie only serves to enhance the disappointment with this one.
It keeps its suspense going for a good hour and then it becomes like a concert with too much “new” music: Bring the hits, not the potential misses.
Of note: Saleka Shyamalan wrote the songs she sings and could land one on the charts if producers pushed it enough. She gives us a sense of what a Taylor-esque singer must be like and isn’t afraid to reach out and touch, even if that touch could be lethal.
