The Failure Of M. Night Shyamalan's TRAP

M. Night Shyamalan is a filmmaker whose career has been marked by a series of high peaks and deep valleys, making him one of the most polarizing directors. Known for his distinctive style, which often includes supernatural elements and twist endings, Shyamalan has both captivated and frustrated audiences and critics alike.

His newest endeavour, Trap, appears to have much of what we love about the writer/director, like an intriguing premise, great performances and a brilliant atmosphere. But it also has many of the things we dislike about his filmmaking, from the twist ending, plot convolutions and contrivances, odd beats, to a narrative that falls apart towards the end.

Join me as we breakdown TRAP today!

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[Whitewingdevil]

"Okay guys hear me out, we want to arrest this serial murderer, right? Right, so I'm thinking we trap him in a stadium with thousands of hostages and innocent bystanders."

"... okay, but won't he just take hostages or otherwise endanger all those innocent people?"

"No way, I mean, you'd have to be pretty messed up to take an innocent person hostage... right?"

[jcoster]

A real cool twist would have been getting all the way to the end and his daughter turning out to be the actual serial killer and him just being an enabler willing to do horrible things to cover for his murderous daughter's crimes.

[neganstains]

M.Night was the perfect choice to direct his daughter Saleka's feature-length music video.

[daJNX]

How weird is it that his daughter, Saleka, a recording artist is ALSO the singer Lady Raven, played by his daughter Saleka, a recording artist. You know, his daughter, Saleka, a recording artist, is a recording artist, named Saleka.

[Lunchladydoyle]

My first thought when I read the plot synopsis was why in the heck would thousands of innocent men at the concert agree to be interrogated by authorities ?? Wouldn’t at least 90% of them demand to see a lawyer ??

[ElkoeWise]

This movie was his attempt to make his daughter famous. Period.

[cnvdh]

He wasn't very clear but he has a daughter named Saleka? Cause he didn't say that he has a daughter named Saleka enough times, I'm sure his daughter's name is Saleka

[IndomitableBeastKing]

Random minor thing I'll argue, you mention Harnet's character is incredibly lucky. That was most serial killers though, the majority of them were always touted as being these amazing masterminds, only to all this time later find out cops were just lazy and the killers were just lucky.

[ericmsandoval]

M Night movies truly piss me off…because they come SO CLOSE to being good.

The last 45 minutes of this movie were absolutely abysmal. Lazy writing and loopholes galore.

(Spoiler alert)
Let’s forget the odds of them even getting CLOSE to escaping BACKSTAGE with the singer.
There’s a scene where the SWAT team shoot who they think is the butcher in the limo SURROUNDED by people. It ends up being a dummy.
How did he get out??? How did he escape?

Then later at the very end the SWAT team take him down with TASERS as he lunges towards them?? Tasers? Really?
And then they let him stop to adjust a bicycle? The same criminal they set up this gigantic trap for?

Josh Hartnett was honestly a cool casting choice for this, but the last part of this movie was abysmal.

[nocturnGER]

Honestly, I thought the Shyamalanian twist would be that he would be some sort of Profiler who had gotten so deep into the though process of the Killer that he would slowly loose himself to that other persona, with the only saving grace in the end being his daughter. The actual plot feels even worse than that...

[CaulkMongler]

Hartnett has always been a truly charismatic actor, I love him in 30 Days of Night. It’s no surprise he was the best thing of the movie, it’s only a shame this movie couldn’t be a better stage for him to show everything he could do.

[Laarye]

Wife: Hello, FBI? I suspect my husband is the serial butcher guy...
FBI: Cool, let's have him take your daughter to a concert, where he will be surrounded by innocent people. Also, We think we'll tell random employees of our trap, don't even give us a picture, at no point will we make that information public, that way he can constantly hide without anyone recognizing him. Also, we think we'll let a popstar and all her followers do our job of tracking him down... In fact, we'll just be completely incompetent. Thanks for the tip.

[c-roy.]

It got to the point where I wanted Cooper to just talk to the cops and lie because it seemed like he could’ve easily just done that.

[spiderlegspinch]

One of his daughters directed the horror movie The Watchers which got a 32% on rotten tomatoes. The plot for trap actually sounds super entertaining except for the gaping plot holes. It probably would have been better to have the concert on lockdown over a bomb threat or something and the protagonist just happens to get swept up in trying to get out because he's worried they'll discover he's a serial killer

[JesseHardesty]

If he wanted to throw in a twist that would have been a surprise due to his family acting weird too. They're a family of serial killers and they are aware of the man in the basement and now they take Raven hostage.

[nyyfandan]

It probably would've been more compelling if it was like 1-3 detectives versus a serial killer. The fact there's 9000 police officers and the FBI and whoever just makes it too absurd and completely unbelievable.

[Exar_Kun]

I’m so bummed that the “twist” didn’t turn out to be the fact that M. Night’s “daughter” was just M. Night in a wig this whole time. Talk about meta right?!? 🤣🤣🤣

[brickcitybalapaulie]

If the Mother suspected him the whole time, and the whole reason the police were there was on his wife’s tip, why would they be questioning anyone other than the actual killer?

[OnlyRomanceKat]

What a nice way to say this was the only way we could get people to go see my kids concert and listen to her music.

[jasperofthrones]

When he picked up the bike near the end, me and my friend turned to each other at the same time and we thought he was about to get on the little kid's bike and pedal as fast as he could away from all the cops and they would be like 'Guess there's nothing we can do, he got away' and the movie ends