Every time I suffer through another M. Night Shyamalan fiasco, I exit the theater thinking, I’m done with this guy.
And yet ... here I am again.
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| Riley (Ariel Donoghue) is loving every minute of the stadium concert featuring her favorite musician, particularly since her father (Josh Hartnett) is sharing the experience with her. But why is the place laden with so many armed cops? |
Honestly, he doesn’t even try now; his recent films have been classic examples of the “idiot plot,” which lurches from one scene to the next, only because each and every character behaves like an idiot at all times.
Trap is no different ... although, in fairness, one character is allowed to be smart (but I’ll not say who, since that would be a major spoiler).
The prologue seems ordinary enough, as doting father Cooper (Josh Hartnett) and his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) attend a sold-out stadium concert starring her OMG all-time-favorite singer/songwriter, Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan). Riley is beside herself with delight, her enthusiasm radiating like the sun’s rays.
But the atmosphere is a little off. The presence of armed cops seems way excessive, even in these dangerous times. Once the concert begins, Cooper seems overly obsessed by this heightened security; he’s also a bit OCD and tense. Hartnett plays this well, his eyes open a bit too wide, his cheerfulness oddly forced.
While father and daughter prowl the outer foyers during intermission, a merch vendor lets slip the truth: Police and the FBI learned that a notorious serial killer, dubbed The Butcher, would be attending this performance ... so they’ve arrived in force, determined to capture him.
(Actually, “in force” is an understatement; it looks like the place is filled with every cop in Philadelphia, along with massive contingents from the neighboring five states.)
Okay, let’s unpack this a bit.
We’re expected to believe that law enforcement would jeopardize tens of thousands of innocent concertgoers, knowing that a cornered lunatic could maim and kill God knows how many of them?
On top of which, given the tone that Shyamalan takes, are we seriously expected to hope that this guy, via guile and ingenious maneuvers, does evade capture? We’re supposed to cheer a maniac who — over time — dismembered 12 earlier victims, leaving body parts strewn all over the landscape? A guy who, as we watch, creates a distraction by permanently disfiguring a fast-food worker, when she gets hit in the face with scalding-hot French fry oil?
Sorry, but that’s just sick.
I’m sure everybody reading this far has figured out who The Butcher is, so I don’t intend to be coy about that detail. Yes, we can — and should — feel sorry for poor Riley, particularly since Donoghue puts earnest heart and soul into her performance.
As for everything else ... puh-leaze.
After the initial set-up, the rest of this train wreck’s first hour is an interminable slog, as we — along with the stadium audience — endure what seems like a dozen songs by Lady Raven. Because, y’know, all of them are written and performed by Saleka Night Shyamalan, the writer/director’s daughter, and Daddy certainly wants to give her a lengthy showcase.
This is nepotism writ very large.
The fact that Saleka is a decent singer and actress is beside the point; the excessive attention paid to Lady Raven’s opulent production numbers quickly wears thin.
If the lengthy first act is boring, what follows can’t be covered by the term “contrived.” The second and third acts rely on ludicrous artifice, leaps of credibility, and tone-deaf character behavior.
Hayley Mills (!) has a thankless supporting role as Dr. Josephine Grant, the FBI profiler leading this manhunt; she does little beyond looking grim while silently scanning the crowd, and occasionally making pseudo-psychological assertions, with the gravity of a mortician.
Marnie McPhail has an even odder brief part, as the strident mother of a girl who apparently hurt Riley’s feelings while at school. (I’ve no idea why this character exists, or what she’s intended to accomplish.)
The always excellent Alison Pill pops up during the third-act climax, as Cooper’s wife Rachel. Pill gives the role her all, which covers a believably wide range of emotions.
By then, though, we’ve grown tired of The Butcher’s antics. His initial moves are credibly clever: stealing a stadium employee ID badge; swiping a police phone, in order to eavesdrop on operations. But his later tricks could be accomplished only by somebody with inhuman powers. He ceases to be real, instead becoming something akin to Halloween’s unstoppable Michael Myers.
Roger Ebert famously said that “No good movie is long enough, and no bad movie is short enough.” This exercise in idiocy should have been shortened by every one of its increasingly mind-numbing 105 minutes.
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