Ah, Manoj Night Shyamalan. What the blue blazing hell are we going to do with you?

Sure, it’s nice that Shyamalan isn’t actively embarrassing himself like he did in the late ’00s, but at least The Happening was fun to laugh at. Ever since Airbender, Shyamalan has consistently failed to make a film with any kind of staying power for better or worse. To wit: You could challenge literally anyone to list ten Will Smith movies, and I guarantee you that After Earth will never once come up. Hell, I wrote a blog entry on The Visit, and I keep forgetting that movie ever happened.

It’s not even that Shyamalan’s more recent efforts are boring, they’re just frustrating. If Old or Knock at the Cabin or Glass had fully and completely delivered on the full potential of their respective premises, we’d still be talking about them as all-time classics. Yet with every single instance, there’s this one aggravating X factor that makes it just overripe enough to get thrown into oblivion. And typically, that X factor is Shyamalan’s own hubris.

Alas, it appears that Shyamalan has no intention of slowing down, as he released two movies for 2024. The first was of course The Watchers, in which Shyamalan produced the underwhelming writing/directing feature debut of his daughter Ishana. And now we’re getting Trap, written/produced/directed by Shyamalan himself. I can only presume that Ishana was busy with her own movie, or she likely would’ve been involved here as a second-unit director.

Incidentally, the trailers made a big deal out of pop musician Saleka, who wrote, produced, and performed the film’s soundtrack, in addition to playing the central role of Lady Raven. What’s more, the filmmakers brought on Kid Cudi and rapper Russ to feature on the soundtrack and play a few speaking cameo parts. And who exactly is Saleka? Well, let me look her up online, and… oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

Yes, Shyamalan cast his own firstborn daughter as an international pop superstar. Who spends two-thirds of the movie performing for a sold-out stadium filled with screaming fans. And she’s basically the protagonist for half of the third act.

But you know what? That’s fine. This is supposed to be a father-daughter story, and Shyamalan apparently wanted to honor that by making this movie with his own daughter. That’s nice. It’s sweet. We’ll roll with it.

(Side note: Come to think of it, quite a few of Shyamalan’s more recent films have been about parent/child relationships. After Earth, The Visit, Old, and Knock at the Cabin all comfortably fit under that heading.)

We lay our scene in Philadelphia, though the film was actually shot in Ohio and Canada for tax purposes. That and I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy to find a stadium willing and able to shut down all operations long enough to shoot a movie. They were finally able to shoot at the FirstOntario Centre, which of course goes by a different name. Because no performance venue on God’s Green Earth would want their name associated with the incompetent staff and compromised security of the fictional Tanaka Arena. But I digress. What’s the story?

Josh Hartnett plays Cooper, who happily agrees to take his daughter (Riley, played by Ariel Donoghue) to see Lady Raven in concert. While you’d expect security to be tight for such a massive event, the police presence quickly turns out to be particularly oppressive. Without going into details, the feds have been given reason to believe that a local serial killer is somewhere in attendance at the concert and no effort has been spared in making sure he doesn’t get away.

The kicker: Cooper is the serial killer. So now he’s got to find some way of escaping the concert without tipping off the police or his daughter. And we’re off to the races.

(Side note: Yes, I’m aware that the plot was loosely inspired by Operation Flagship. But so many details are so radically different that it’s barely worth mentioning.)

To start with, I’m sorry to report that Shyamalan’s penchant for extreme close-ups is still full in effect. And yes, a few of those extreme close-ups involve the actors talking directly into the camera for whatever reason. But once again, Shyamalan proves his own perpetual undoing by way of overwrought dialogue and shitty screenwriting.

This is one of those unfortunate suspense thrillers in which the characters’ intelligence fluctuates wildly depending on the needs of the plot. There are times when the police act in a competent and rational manner, and there are times when everyone in the supporting cast seems to lose their entire central nervous system.

Easily the worst offender is Jamie (Jonathan Langdon), our dimwitted overweight loudmouthed black comic relief character. Why did this movie need a character who only exists to give our main character every advantage with no effort and for no reason? Why is this black clownish archetype still a thing in 2024? Did Anthony Andersen turn this role down? Was the Ontario-born Langdon only hired because movies produced in Canada are required by law to cast a certain quota of Canadian actors? I have so many questions.

Ariel Donoghue is doing the best she can, but she’s essentially limited to playing a plot device with minimal agency. Hayley Mills plays our de facto antagonist, but she doesn’t get to do much either. For an actor, Salenka is certainly a pop musician. The only supporting actor remotely capable of elevating this material is Allison Pill, and she doesn’t show up until the third act.

There is one and only reason why this movie is remotely salvageable, and it’s Josh Hartnett. This guy was uniquely qualified to play this particular role, with the chops and the charisma to play the loving father, the homicidal psychopath, and to switch from one to the other on a dime. Even better, Hartnett plays both sides conflicting with each other, which is fascinating to watch.

I need hardly add that Cooper is the only character who’s consistently intelligent and resourceful from start to finish. Yet he’s fallible and limited enough to fall well short of “Gary Stu villain” status, which also helps. So much of this movie is about watching an intelligent and competent character try and think his way out of a trap, which is always entertaining regardless of whether or not the protagonist is sympathetic. (See also: Inside. Seriously, go see it, it’s a much better movie than this.)

Unfortunately, Cooper does have one crucial Achilles’ Heel: Mommy issues. Yes, we’ve got a serial killer who turned evil due to an abusive mother, complete with Marcia Bennett on hand to play hallucinations of said mother. The filmmakers pulled a straight-up Norman Bates, without any shame or effort at alteration. Sweet Mary on a cross.

All of this points to the one major overarching question I had from start to finish: What the fuck even is this movie?! I can understand a movie with twists and turns. I can even understand a movie — like this one — with a “fuck you” ending. But this movie is so wildly inconsistent in the characters’ competence and intelligence, whipsawing from one tone to another, that I simply can’t get a bead on what genre this picture is supposed to be. Is there a consistent theme or an intelligent message? Who’s supposed to be the protagonist? All of these questions are beyond me, and the aforementioned “fuck you” ending certainly doesn’t help.

Chalk up Trap as another self-inflicted misfire in which Shyamalan fell victim to his own arrogance. It’s another film with a difficult yet brilliant premise that could only have worked if Shyamalan really was the genius he thinks he is. It’s a film totally unworthy of the Josh Hartnett performance — and admittedly, the Saleka soundtrack — powering it.

This is yet another one destined to be thrown into obscurity along with the rest of the recent output from Shyamalan and his daughters. I’m not entirely sure if Shyamalan needs to try harder or stop trying altogether, but sure as God’s got sandals, he needs to stop trying whatever he’s doing.