All the paths of the deceitful thriller, read this as an excellent virtue, end up leading to Alfred Hitchcock, which, in the case of this outstanding student named M. Night Shyamalan, is the result of an overwhelming logic within a genre, the Hitchcockian genre, where logic is something that can be molded to the taste of the author and his narrative needs (far from logic, of course). In this exciting path that the director and screenwriter of ‘The Sixth Sense’, a film whose shadow (that of the surprising final twist) continues to be perhaps the worst enemy of a filmmaker determined to grow, mutate, take risks and be personal, has undertaken to finally be Hitchcock, he has known how to reread the absurdity of the end of the world of ‘The Birds’ in ‘Signs’, the underrated ‘The Happening’, ‘Time’ and ‘Knock on the Door’. ‘The Trap’ is, like the latter, a minimalist tour de force that takes place in almost a single, physical setting, because in reality (like ‘Split’ and ‘Glass’) its solitary, immense and claustrophobic place is that of the human mind. The mind of the author, that of a Shyamalan master of each and every action of a puzzle, irrational in his apparent attachment to realism, of which he knows the pieces, the order and the final result more than we ourselves, perhaps other pieces in his work.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
‘The Trap’, intended to disappoint, and even irritate, those who want to see the final drawing of the puzzle they wanted to see, and not one in which parts are missing, expressly hidden by its creator and executor, is once again a stop on the Hitchcock path. The concert venue (an Eras Tour that would have driven the very stylish Jean-Jacques Beneix in ‘The Diva’ crazy) is reminiscent of the theatre where Paul Newman and Julie Andrews hid to find themselves trapped and sharpen their wits to escape in ‘Torn Curtain’; the strange family relationships of Josh Harnett’s character (truly splendid) refer to that of Uncle Charlie, widow-killer, with his niece Charlie in ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, and everything refers us to that evil capacity that the plump Uncle Alfredo had to make us sympathise with monsters like Norman Bates in ‘Psycho’ or the tie-strangler in ‘Frenzy’. Because, naturally, the viewers of ‘The Trap’ want The Butcher to escape from the police and FBI siege.
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However, and just like Ti West in the fabulous ‘MaXXXine’ that will be released in our cinemas on August 23, Shyamalan has preferred to prioritise a student, the most diligent and brilliant, of Alfred Hitchcock, who has been a genuine master for decades: Brian De Palma. If Ti West in ‘MaXXXine’ copulates to the sound of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and a Beverly Hills of deception, death, sex and deadly neon lights, making an incredible sample of Kenneth Anger’s ‘Body Double’, M. Night Shyamalan succeeds in making this cross between the Hitchcockian ‘North by Northwest’ and ‘Rope’ be in essence and form a great tribute to De Palma.
Sabrina Lantos
‘The Trap’ is, in addition to being playful for playful initiates, Peter Hyams’ ‘Sudden Death’ with Van Damme (a firefighter also like Josh Harnett here), ‘Snake Eyes’, a masterpiece, despite who it may be, depalmian. In both, the plot takes place in a place where entertainment, the spectacle, is actually a farce: a rigged boxing match that masks a political assassination in the film with Nicolas Cage and Gary Sinise; and the multitudinous concert of a pop star that hides her mission as a huge mousetrap for an elusive serial killer who has gone there with his pre-adolescent daughter. And in both there is the dilemma of whether a criminal is still a good father and husband, or the best and only friend we have. If (one of the essences of the work of Brian De Palma and also of M. Night Shyamalan) we are nothing more than extras in a foreign show that we do not control, pieces of an indecipherable puzzle.
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‘The Trap’ is, in its electric back and forth through the mouse maze with songs, dozens of characters who are actually extras from a fiction (from a Shyamalan film) and sublimations of the cliffhanger, a real blast. The author of ‘The Forest’ once again deploys his multiple point of view through actions off-screen, in a second or third frame, and from the different screens of these modern times of video surveillance and egotism on social networks. With all these images, De Palma builds his particular split screen, making us not only accomplices of the psychopathic piece to be hunted, but also its helpless victims.
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Perhaps aware of the criticism he is receiving, Shyamalan finally puts all the cards (or the dice with a double black dot) on his showy gaming table (there are very few directors left who shoot as well, and with as much sense, as he does) and it is then, in that unhinged and comic analyst embodied and represented by Hayley Mills (once split in two years ago to set a trap for her parents in ‘You to Boston and I to California’, but also trapped in love with a murderer in Hitchcock’s, and Agatha Christie’s ‘Eternal Night’), in the captivating absurdity of his set pieces at the end of the film, and in that note on psychological abuse in childhood, where the true Brian De Palma hidden in ‘The Trap’ emerges: ‘In the Name of Cain’.
Sabrina Lantos
Even though I sometimes see dead people because of a critic and a sector of the public that I don’t understand, and even though sometimes everything seems to lead us to the idea that Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma and M. Night Shyamalan are on their way to ending up trapped in the mental asylum of ‘Glass’, I have the hope of meeting them again in the cinema, in cinema. Of having as devilishly good a time as I did with ‘Trap’.
Sabrina Lantos
For those caught up in the purest essences, virtues, successes and madness of the Hitch/De Palma/Shyamalan thriller triangle.
The best: Josh Harnett, the Cary Grant of ‘Suspicion’, is finally a charming, ruthless killer.
Worst: You won’t see me at a concert of Shyamalan’s daughter.
Technical sheet
Address: M. Night Shyamalan Department: Josh Hartnett, Saleka, Hayley Mills, Marnie McPhail Country: USA Year: 2024 Release date: 9-8-2024 Gender: Thriller Script: M. Night Shyamalan Duration: 105 min.
Synopsis: A father and his teenage daughter attend a pop concert, where they realize they are at the center of a dark and sinister event. A killer is on the loose and the police team uses their wits to set a trap for the criminal, who becomes known as The Butcher.
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Alon Amir
He consumed films, television, comics, pocket books and 8-track disco music beyond his means. Pray for his soul, although they say he sold it some time ago for dinner with Eva Green. Don’t pay too much attention to him.
