My favorite thing about the band Weezer is that everyone who seems to care about it is never happy with what they might be doing. I imagine it gets inappropriately frustrating and heart wrenching to be Rivers Cuomo, so cut the guy slack. He is attempting to replicate in this present moment what only memory has the ability to do. The only thing that I find myself struggling to feel sympathy for is M.Night Shyamalan which is close. He is not as talented nor as desperate as Rivers Cuomo, but suffice it to say he has inexplicably become underrated even if he was never that good to begin with.
His new film Trap is also not good but it is interesting to come across and watch is it? It is overly complicated and utterly ridiculous but somehow good, it is just an unnecessary overhype .Trap tells the story of Cooper (Josh Hartnett) who is a serial killer and also a loving father of two who wanted to take his in his opinion to a Lady Raven (one of Shyamalan’s daughters Saleka) concert. If I could compare this Imagine an Ariana Grande concert. Cooper understands quickly enough that 1) a concert taking place around three in the afternoon is a pretty strange thing to do and 2) there is a shocking amount of police officers attending that concert. What she always hoped for was that there would be an FBI profiler about and she was right she had a good template worked out for getting him arrested.
It’s impossible to approach any film by M. Night Shyamalan with the expectation of strong plot lines or multilayered character arcs. That is not how it goes. Engaging his works is very much a competition between the viewers and him, whether one is going to figure out the plot point twist before he does. There is a lot of things in that particular film that are out of context to begin with. For instance, Cooper, for some reason is nervously suggesting that there is a possibility of being restricted at the exit of the arena. There are three thousand men there and he doesn’t have anything suspicious on him which the police can get access to.
I’m saying why wouldn’t a psychopath want to take his chances? Once a psychopath, always a sociopath .There is a sadistic enjoyment in observing Cooper becoming increasingly brazen in his efforts to evade police officers (who apparently possess a serial killer bullshit radar) just as one enjoys watching slashers with their creative ways of killing off the unfortunate. There, Cooper is the worst father one can imagine who is willing to do anything including roaming around the entire arena looking for ways to avoid his daughter, but it is terribly cute since his daughter is basically non existent and only stands to gain from in his hilarious schemes. The poor girl is thoroughly enjoying herself.
The environment is crazy just like the one in Squid Game or the American Gladiators. It’s a strange life and death survival game with only victory, disgrace or death as possible results. In the course that includes Cooper, there is also a smoke and mirrors show demonstrably staged by M. Night Shyamalan that seeks to incense the audience on what exactly the sineer of shaymalan does to cooper. This one was a bit of a let down. The elements of shayamalan plot to an extent has been big limp dick.
One of the more amusing aspects of Trap occurs after the show has finished and everyone is home. It runs for about twenty minutes, and it makes for a strangely heady and taut piece of work with none of the usual hollywood formatting. Imagine three short films placed next to each other. Together with the movie, you don’t really conceive of Josh Hartnett as menacing at all. I imagined the Shyamalan twist was going to be that he is a madman who thinks he is a mass murderer, which would have made his part more enjoyable with Marnie McPhail.
However, as soon as you step into his house, it feels like you have become a character in his dream alongside him. At the end of the story (i won’t spoil) there is a brilliant part where metaphors are blended with the narrative such that you are at a loss as to what it is you are watching. This doesn’t fit with the other parts, it feels like it belongs to another film. Once again the end makes no sense and will annoy you, but the journey to get there was fun and you definitely can feel your heart racing in your chest during several moments of the movie.
I liked it the movie Trap wasn’t bad. However I will not be able to tell you otherwise if you reach out to me and ask whether I would recommend Trap because I feel safe saying it has absolutely no hope of being better than Stephe’s other works. Since Split in 2016, it has been the best movie M.Night Shyamalan has directed in my opinion. It’s a combination of unusual and bold ideas which suffers greatly due to the dumb screenplay and uninspiring character writing, but it’s certainly more spicy then the vast majority of movies slatted for release during and after the pandemic.
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