The latest from M. Night Shyamalan, whose plot twist sleight-of-hand shenanigans captivated audiences early (“The Sixth Sense” and “The Village”) but faltered over the years (“The Happening” and “Lady in the Water”), is in line with his more recent fare “Old” (2021) and “Knock at the Cabin” (2023) – serviceable suspense despite ridiculous carrying-ons. The set-up’s fairly simple: A serial killer by the name of The Butcher, whose kill spree is at an even dozen, is purportedly at a pop diva’s concert, which the FBI and local police have targeted as the venue to apprehend Philadelphia’s most wanted. The task isn’t a simple grab-and-nab, as the authorities don’t know what The Butcher looks like, just that he has a tattoo of a bunny on his wrist and likely drives a dark-colored sedan. The latter is a deduction made by the veteran profiler on the case, Josephine Grant, played by ’60s icon Hayley Mills in a cheeky bit of casting – as she starred in “The Parent Trap” (1961). Grant believes the OCD nature of the crime scenes suggests The Butcher wouldn’t drive an ostentatious vehicle of light color, because dust and dirt would show too much. Given his moniker, though, it’s hard to imagine such exact order at the killing sites.
Attending the concert is Philly firefighter Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) and his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue), a ravenous fan of Lady Raven (played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka) who’s of the same pop queen royalty as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Dad’s not too hip and has to get explanations of the happening lingo of the moment – “crispy” and “jelly,” to name two – which wasn’t too far off from me getting a recent lecture on “rizz” from my teenage daughter, whom I similarly took to a Katy Perry show. It’s not too far into the show when dad, sussing out all the extra security precautions, starts to get antsy, and it’s not because he’s the only dorky dude towering above a sea of shrieking teens, but the killer himself. Early on, in one trip to the restroom, Cooper pulls up video footage of a panicked young man imprisoned in a basement. The film could have easily been titled “Serial Dad.”
The cat-and-mouse ferreting works pretty well for a while, and the concert orchestration is pretty dope. Saleka, who’s had small parts in her dad’s films before, wrote and performs all the songs with convincingly Swiftian appeal and nearly steals the film. Hartnett’s fine as the dad-joke pop with a sinister side, and hauntingly reminiscent of Robert Urich playing a firefighter in the film “Turk 182” (1985); Donoghue’s career, as evidenced here, should continue to rise. That said, there’s a dramatic shift in the film and locale about two-thirds in where the wheels of plausibility start to come off the bus. That’s frustrating, because until then “Trap” manages to hold your attention while you grit your teeth. Like the recently released “The Instigators,” the film could have used a better title and a less ludicrous wrap-up, though the last sequence almost does enough to redeem.
At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge; Apple Cinemas Cambridge, 168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge Highlands near Alewife and Fresh Pond; and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
A stronger
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