FILM
TRAP
THE (M.) NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
He couldn’t wait to get the mosh pit going.
★★
OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 105 MINS
DIRECTOR M. Night Shyamalan
CAST Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, Alison Pill
PLOT When Cooper (Hartnett), aka ‘The Butcher’, takes his daughter Riley (Donoghue) to see pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan), he discovers he’s been drawn into an FBI-laid trap.
SOMEWHERE DEEP INSIDE Trap there’s a good movie bound, gagged and struggling to get out. It might be a grim comedy with something satirical to say about fandoms, drawing the line between the icky fascination with serial killers and shrieky pop idolatry. It could be something straighter and darker; a taut single-location claustro-thriller. Or it might even be closer to a heyday M. Night Shyamalan joint, which takes pride in a good ol’ fashioned rug-pull. But whatever it might be, that good movie never breaks free. Instead, we have an oddly inert wannabe nail-biter that diffuses much of the tension it might have mustered from its neat if improbable premise, through a hokily mounted mix of cringe and perplexity.