Trap

This past weekend, I went to the last possible showing (locally) of this M. Night Shyamalan movie starring Josh Hartnett in a leading role that, in my opinion, solidifies his comeback as a movie star started in last year's Oppenheimer. Here he plays Cooper, a man with a double life: a Dad of the Year who rewards his teenage daughter for a good report card by taking her to a big concert featuring her favorite pop star, and a psychopathic serial killer who realizes he's been caught in a trap. The feds and the local police are all over the concert venue, looking for him, because somehow they know he's going to be there – and now he has to sneak around, looking for a way out, without raising his daughter's suspicions. It's a thriller worthy of Hitchcock, with a legit pop concert embedded in it and some gruesome shocks, hold-your-breath moments of suspense and twists, twists and counter-twists galore.

The cast features Hayley Mills, most recognized for her role as identical twins in the 1961 version of Parent Trap, as a veteran FBI profiler; Allison Pill, whom I recognized for her role as Agnes Jurati on Star Trek: Picard, as the killer's (ahem) oblivious wife, Rachel; singer-songwriter Saleka Night Shyamalan (the director's daugther) as pop star Lady Raven, who not only wrote and performed a whole concert worth of material for the first act of the movie but also takes on a surprisingly important role in the second act; and real-life musical artists Russ and Kid Cudi as fictional musical artists similar to themselves.

I thought it was an effective thriller. It did what it says on the label. Rather than give away too many plot points, I'm going to restrict my synopsis to what I've already stated, plus the following Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The whole second act, in which Cooper strong-arms Lady Raven into helping him but she turns the tables and retakes control. (2) The third-act battle of wits between Cooper and Rachel, who maybe isn't as oblivious as she seemed. (3) The bit where Cooper and Lady Raven find themselves, and their limo, surrounded by a crowd.

Of course, it would hardly be an M. Night Shyamalan movie without a macabre twist at the end, a cameo appearance by the director and a bonus scene a little way into the end credits. He doesn't take it over the top or transgress the bounds of good taste. Without being overly flashy, Trap might score up there with his earliest and best films, like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs.

But what you really want to know is whether Josh Hartnett can command the screen in this creepy role, and the answer is: He absolutely can and does. You can buy into the way he fools people around him into thinking he's one of the good guys, without taking anything away from the evil that you see in him when nobody is looking. Plot twist-wise, he has a chilling knack for blending in, for remaining in control even while walking into a crowd of cops who are looking for him, for escaping what seems to be an inescapable trap. But when he loses it, he's just terrifying. And the final gleam in his eyes, before the credits roll, are worthy of Anthony – Perkins or Hopkins, you pick. Also, when his shirt comes off, you'll notice that the passage of years hasn't destroyed his hunkiness. It has to be said.