M. Night Shyamalan has more talented daughters than Adam Sandler. This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise … and, hey, I clearly haven’t seen the best of the Sandler kids; maybe there is more there. To date, however, I have the Sandler girls with a handful of forgettable performances while Ishana Shyamalan made The Watchers and Seleka (Shyamalan) played a convincing diva/idol in Trap.
Seleka, playing an A-List musician holding a sold-out 20,000 seat arena concert, wrote and performed 14 songs for Trap. Were they all forgettable? Yes. But I just saw Blackpink and I’d say the same of them.
Awkward dad Cooper (Josh Hartnett) is rewarding his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) with tickets to see Lady Raven (Seleka) live at the Tanaka Arena in downtown Philadelphia. (Sure, its’ the Rogers Centre in Toronto, but there’s no point in pressing the issue.) For the most part, this seems like a fairly realistic set-up. White suburban dad wants to be hip, wants to be a hero, rewards child for good grades, and, hey, may as well see what the kid is into, right? Sure, it’s hard to imagine that the men’s room would be crowded at such an event, but :shrug: It’s also absolutely impossible to imagine this performance comes with a halftime break, but again :shrug:
The point is if I’m not willing to condemn M. Night Shyamalan for the ridiculous nepotism shown in the film (“Look at my kid! Isn’t she a superstar!”) there’s little point in critiquing the stuff that makes the plot move.
Cooper keeps leaving his ground floor seats. I mean, like constantly. Does he not actually like his daughter? Is he disgusted by Lady Raven? Who is to say? All I know is if a certain somebody found out I’d abandoned my 13-year-old in a sold-out arena for as long as he does, well, I would be facing a star chamber of hurt.
Whatever brings Cooper out of his seat initially is exacerbated by an intense and 
omnipresent police/FBI army surrounding the building. It is impossible not to notice uniformed men everywhere.
What’s going on?
Well, there is a serial killer on the loose, The “Butcher.” And if we couldn’t already tell that Cooper was The Butcher, we know it soon enough when he pulls a surveillance feed up on his phone where -somewhere in Philly- a chained-up young man is going to die without intervention.
Ahhhh, but here’s the big plot point: the police know The Butcher is at the concert and have designed a Trap in the form of a Lady Raven concert that The Butcher will not escape. Or will he? Just how much ingenuity does Cooper have? And do you suppose we get exhausted rooting for the anti-hero here?
There might have been a little too much Seleka in this film. She isn’t bad, but it’s hard to avoid the chant of “DIRECTOR’S DAUGHTER! DIRECTOR’S DAUGHTER!” marching around in my brain. I don’t know that we heard all 14 songs Seleka wrote, but I guarantee we heard parroted lyrics to at least five of them. Josh Hartnett -embracing villainy as he ages; welcome to acting, son- makes a decent focal point. There’s nothing exceptional in this film, but I found it good enough to overlook the obvious issues while it was going on. I did like Trap better than Old, a film with a much larger statement in mind. Is that good enough for you? I should hope not.
The director who once made The Sixth Sense
Now casts his children on flimsy pretense
I’m not gonna be hating
Instead I’ll sit waiting
For Unbreakable grandkid to commence
Rated PG-13, 105 Minutes
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Films with nepotism
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Idols
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Serial killer family men
