M. Night Shyamalan directs Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue and Hayley Mills in this thriller where a serial killer gets wind of an elaborate sting to catch him at the concert he is attending with his daughter.

This and Smile 2 are going to be studied as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour era cinema. Live Aid might have been a cultural touchstone for a generation but it never inspired two genre movies while it was still happening. As a thriller this unravels in the third act. We spiral too far away from the hook, there are too many plot holes or false moves and the entire lengthy finale relies on an acting performance that is very flat. As a one watcher though, Trap is a tense hoot. Hartnett is having a blast modulating from bottled up ingenuity to friendly creep. You do fully enter Hartnett’s The Butcher / loving dad’s mindset. You root for him and enjoy every sneaky little cat-and-mouse victory. It kinda is a reverse Die Hard. The concert setting is well realised, even the original songs (written and performed by Shyamalan’s daughter) convince. Untethered from reality and funny as fuck, I don’t want to be down on Trap but it has as many problems as qualities.

Watched at Vue Omni Centre!

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Faculty (1998)

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