Trap (2024) Spoiler Thread

[SpiderByte]

I'm not gonna lie this was such a letdown for me. It's only started getting good after the concert was done. M Nights daughter is not a compelling enough performer to carry the first half and not a good enough actor for the second. How do you pitch a movie on "what if a killers trapped at a concert" and the entirety of the parts at the concert is the worst part? It's like an entirely different, much better movie afterward. That should have been the whole thing! Too little way way way too late

 

Ugh.

[Eric Prime]

Discuss

[PlatnumRoyce]

It's fine? The definition of a 2 to 2.5 star movie. I was expecting the entire film to revolve around the concert and while the way that resolves is somewhat clunky, I thought both halves worked. 

[excel1]

LOL solid movie and much funnier then expected but easy to see how it could have been better with one more round of screen writing. Josh is fantastic (taking off his shirt at the end was hilariously random), Jamie wins worst employee ever, the lack of a big twist at the end made it feel flatter than it probably should have. 

 

Pitched as a "what if Ted Bundy was not caught when younger and went on to live a normal, charming suburban Dad life, until his past comes back to haunt him?" has a lot of promise. It is really easy to see how this could have been framed and marketed differently to make it scarier, i.e. use flashbacks to allow everything to actually wrap up at the concert, it feels forced towards the end where it just kept going and going. 

Edited August 3 by excel1

[vafrow]

I haven't seen the movie so I'll only look at responses as a direct reply.

 

There was a couple of days of shooting in my town on this. I took my kid to the set, which he enjoyed.

 

I have no idea how much our location shows up in the film, especially since there's no obvious signs of it in the trailer. How much it shows might impact whether I take my kid. He's on the fence about going. But the thought of seeing the set he visited show up really intrigues him. 

 

The set was an exterior set on our main street, so lots of storefronts. They had a number of small vendor tents set up. I recall one was selling running shoes. There were fake police cars set up that were labeled as being from East Dublin.

 

For anyone who's seen it who can indicate if that rings a bell at all if it played any prominent role, I'd appreciate it.

 

Also, content wise, I have a somewhat curious 11 year old about the film. What are we talking about as objectionable content. Based on rating, I'm assuming nothing too bad but if it delves into anything too dark, let me know.

[JimmyB]

56 minutes ago, vafrow said:

I haven't seen the movie so I'll only look at responses as a direct reply.

 

There was a couple of days of shooting in my town on this. I took my kid to the set, which he enjoyed.

 

I have no idea how much our location shows up in the film, especially since there's no obvious signs of it in the trailer. How much it shows might impact whether I take my kid. He's on the fence about going. But the thought of seeing the set he visited show up really intrigues him. 

 

The set was an exterior set on our main street, so lots of storefronts. They had a number of small vendor tents set up. I recall one was selling running shoes. There were fake police cars set up that were labeled as being from East Dublin.

 

For anyone who's seen it who can indicate if that rings a bell at all if it played any prominent role, I'd appreciate it.

 

Also, content wise, I have a somewhat curious 11 year old about the film. What are we talking about as objectionable content. Based on rating, I'm assuming nothing too bad but if it delves into anything too dark, let me know.

The only storefronts in the movie is when Josh Hartnett magically escapes the limo.

 

There are a few tents setup one was greenish colored, another might have been blue.  Maybe 4-5 tents setup. 

 

The limo turns the corner and we get an exterior shot of what looks like a small downtown that has storefronts on each side. 

The limo stops in front of what looks like a restaurant that has lots of lights and outside seating with tables that have umbrellas.

 

The movie is very tame.  All kids are different but I think an 11 year old would have no problem with this film, he'll probably be bored.

[AdrianL]

This was definitely disappointing. They did a great job with marketing cause the film is not exciting at all. The ridiculousness of the last act with the singer lolol I did not know that was Shayamalan's daughter beforehand. 

 

Hoping the best for Josh Hartnett though, he's good in this. Had this had a better script this really could've been great. 

[vafrow]

35 minutes ago, JimmyB said:

The only storefronts in the movie is when Josh Hartnett magically escapes the limo.

 

There are a few tents setup one was greenish colored, another might have been blue.  Maybe 4-5 tents setup. 

 

The limo turns the corner and we get an exterior shot of what looks like a small downtown that has storefronts on each side. 

The limo stops in front of what looks like a restaurant that has lots of lights and outside seating with tables that have umbrellas.

 

The movie is very tame.  All kids are different but I think an 11 year old would have no problem with this film, he'll probably be bored.

 

That sounds like it. I checked some photos I took.

 

Sounds fairly limited, and if that's his main reason for going, he'll be disappointed.

 

Interesting is that these scenes were reshoots done very late (May), for what sounds fairly inconsequential.

[filmlover]

A limp thriller that clearly started as an idea for a wildly outlandish concept (what if the Eras Tour was used as a trap for a serial killer?) but then the filmmakers struggled to build an actual movie around it. I almost want to give kudos to the marketing campaign for successfully managing to hide virtually the entire second half of the movie (from the trailers, you would think the whole movie transpires at the concert), but M. Night Shyamalan is unable to sustain this thin premise even across its relatively short 105 minute runtime and the decision to put it out there at the start that our protagonist is really the killer makes for an odd structural choice that the movie is unable to overcome. The inevitable CinemaSins video covering this is going to have an absolute field day ripping apart the insane number of plot holes and contrivances that occur in order for the plot to get to where it wants to go (poor Alison Pill finding herself stuck as Suddenly Important to the Story Wife). An only sporadically effective lead performance from Josh Hartnett doesn't really help matters either: he's believable as a suburban dad but not even remotely convincing as an unfeeling murderer, which becomes a problem when the latter persona completely takes over in the second half.

 

That section of the movie creates plenty of issues on its own as the action goes beyond the concert and makes it apparent why Shyamalan really made the movie: to showcase his daughter, Saleka Shyamalan. While I understand setting a whole movie at one location could become tedious quickly, I did NOT anticipate Lady Raven suddenly becoming actually crucial to the story. I would've yelled "oh, come on!" at the screen if I wasn't in a theater with a handful of other people when she repeatedly found herself a damsel in distress, and by the end she more or less ends up becoming the real hero of the story!  As far as Saleka's performance itself is concerned, while she's certainly pretty, she clearly doesn't have the acting chops for a major gig like this and her concert scenes don't give off the energy required from a megastar performer (the songs aren't very good either...I hope they're not expecting an Oscar nomination + invite to perform at the ceremony). There hasn't been such a blatant example of nepotism in filmmaking since Francis Ford Coppola's ill-fated decision to cast inexperienced daughter Sofia in a pivotal role in The Godfather Part III.

 

It's cute that M. Night manages to bring Haley Mills (of the original Parent Trap) out of obscurity for a fairly substantial role, but that's about it as far as cleverness is concerned here. The Sixth Sense is days away from celebrating its 25th anniversary, and this becomes nothing more than a reminder that it's obvious he's never going to approach the highs of that classic ever again.

 

C

Edited August 4 by filmlover

[excel1]

Split was very good, not instant mega classic ala Sixth Sense good, but it felt like prime Shyamalan. Trap is much more of a comedy than anything else I can recall Night doing.

 

I think the film works fairly well on it's own, but it isn't hard to think other possible approaches to the general idea. I.E. set the entire film at the concert, start to finish, with only flashbacks showcasing earlier events of the killer though not revealing to the audience exactly who it is, do not reveal Hartnett as the killer in marketing or early in the film, have a few other other characters thrown in, etc. If the thought is "What if Ted Bundy was never caught after his escape, became a dotting suburban dad who still randomly killed on the side, and was eventually caught by his wife who anonymously turns him in", there are a lot of angles to explore there

Edited August 5 by excel1

[filmlover]

I was half-expecting a big reveal that the wife actually took part in the kidnappings/murders as well. The revelation that she, a character the movie doesn't even introduce until it's more than halfway finished, was actually the mastermind behind tipping off the FBI as to his presence at the concert was so deflating. The "first draft that needs a lot of polishing before filming starts" vibes were off the charts with this.

[Lucas]

At one point the script runs out of material so Shyamalan himself shows up to unlock the next level so there can be more things that happen in the movie, and I could not stop laughing. Really enjoyed it, warts and all.

[lorddemaxus]

23 hours ago, filmlover said:

I was half-expecting a big reveal that the wife actually took part in the kidnappings/murders as well. The revelation that she, a character the movie doesn't even introduce until it's more than halfway finished, was actually the mastermind behind tipping off the FBI as to his presence at the concert was so deflating. The "first draft that needs a lot of polishing before filming starts" vibes were off the charts with this.

That would’ve made no sense at all and would’ve been a twist for the sake of a twist (something people unfairly criticize Shymalan for). 

[filmlover]

8 hours ago, lorddemaxus said:

That would’ve made no sense at all and would’ve been a twist for the sake of a twist (something people unfairly criticize Shymalan for). 

Given how silly the rest of the movie is, I'm not sure it would've been totally out of place. 

 

The only character I cared about was the daughter. She went from having the best day of her life to discovering her dad was a serial killer within the span of a few hours. Poor girl.

[JohnnyGossamer]

This was hilarious. Thumbs up. More comedies like this one please, M Night. Just as hokey as hoped. Audience was dying laughing throughout. Hartnett channeling 90s era romantic lead Mike Myers as his idea of what a dad serial killer would act like was the chef's kiss.

Edited August 6 by JohnnyGossamer

[JohnnyGossamer]

6 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Given how silly the rest of the movie is, I'm not sure it would've been totally out of place. 

 

The only character I cared about was the daughter. She went from having the best day of her life to discovering her dad was a serial killer within the span of a few hours. Poor girl.

Felt bad for the fry cook too. She was done dirtiest of anyone in the movie. Then the medics just leave her on the stretcher to writhe in excruciating pain. 

[filmlover]

Just now, JohnnyGossamer said:

Felt bad for the fry cook too. She was done dirtiest of anyone in the movie. Then the medics just leave her on the stretcher to writhe in excruciating pain. 

Her too!

[JimmyB]

3 hours ago, filmlover said:

Given how silly the rest of the movie is, I'm not sure it would've been totally out of place. 

 

The only character I cared about was the daughter. She went from having the best day of her life to discovering her dad was a serial killer within the span of a few hours. Poor girl.

That twist wouldn't have felt out of place in this mess of a movie.

 

He tries to gouge out one of the cops/fbi guys eyes and 6 cops tasering him. After that, they let him hug his daughter and play with the bike. This had me saying GTFO in the theater.....one of many GTFO moments, lol.

[JohnnyGossamer]

How are people not accepting this as a comedy first?

[filmlover]

3 hours ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

How are people not accepting this as a comedy first?

Maybe if it had winked at the audience more than it did (Lady Raven being abducted in her limo by Hartnett disguised as one of the SWAT team members raiding his house after successfully sneaking out is such a trope from every stalker/serial killer movie ever that I almost wanted to believe M. Night was making fun of the cliche). As it stands I found the movie too awkwardly structured to believe that he intended it to be a satire.

 

The only part I actually laughed at was the mean former friend and her pushy mother getting pissed at each other during the concert after seeing Hartnett's successful manipulation in getting his daughter to be the Dreamer Girl.