Inside The Mind Of A Killer

What a twist! This article contains major spoilers for “Trap.”

Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s no denying that M. Night Shyamalan movies are an experience like no other. As one of the very few working filmmakers who can reliably bring audiences into theaters on name-brand recognition alone, there’s always something worth celebrating every time we have a chance to see what he has up his sleeves next. His latest comes in the form of “Trap,” the Josh Hartnett-starring thriller set at a concert venue — which, of course, has been transformed into a sting operation in order to capture a serial killer on the loose. In a rarity for a Shyamalan movie, however, the twist was already given away in the marketing that Hartnett’s character Cooper is actually the murderer in question. Case closed, pencils down, everybody go home … right?

Well, not quite. In vintage Shyamalan fashion, the various trailers and clips gave away absolutely nothing about the film. What we all thought would be a story set in a single location as the net is drawn tight all around our main character instead becomes something else entirely about an hour in — for better or worse, as I wrote in my review for /Film. Wherever you happen to land on what’s sure to be another divisive entry in the Shyamalan canon, there’s plenty to dissect and analyze about everything leading up to that unforgettable final shot. Read on for our definitive take on the ending of “Trap,” the twist(s) along the way, and, oh yeah, the director cameo you had to know was coming, too.

For much of the early going, “Trap” plays out exactly as you might expect. We follow father/daughter duo Cooper and Riley (Ariel Donoghue) as they’re on their way to a Lady Raven concert (played by the director’s daughter, Saleka Shyamalan). A normal day for a pair of normal characters … if it weren’t for the fact that we all know Cooper is, believe it or not, a serial killer. Shyamalan’s original script takes advantage of this even before the actual reveal later on, wryly messing with our expectations by playing up Cooper’s goofy dad-joke affectations (which mostly come across as some serious overcompensation by a sociopath) and including amusingly on-the-nose dialogue about never letting people fool you. Once inside the venue, it only takes a few more minutes before Shyamalan acknowledges what we’re all painfully aware of — Cooper makes an excuse to go to the bathroom, takes out his phone, and checks on a victim he currently has tied up in the basement of some unknown safehouse.

From there, “Trap” turns into a ticking clock. Cooper’s sixth sense goes off as he intuits that, between the heavy police presence and other curious goings-on among the employees, something just isn’t quite right here. Thanks to an inadvertent assist by a vendor named Jamie (a scene-stealing Jonathan Langdon), the incognito killer realizes his mistake. With the authorities closing in on him, led by Hayley Mills’ relentless FBI profiler Dr. Grant, Cooper has no choice but to find a way to flee the area without setting off the suspicions of his observant daughter. The most thrilling parts of the movie come when he turns into MacGyver, unleashing distractions and manipulating others to escape this mess.

Until, that is, everything changes.

Bet you didn’t see that coming. After several failed attempts at finding a way out of the building, including everything from pushing drunken concertgoers down stairs to sabotaging food stations to one particularly ill-advised idea about slipping underneath a hidden platform and escaping with Riley, Cooper finally settles on the ideal plan. Spying a credentialed attendee who looks like he might be in charge, the killer worms himself into the good graces of what turns out to be Lady Raven’s proud uncle (played by none other than, drum roll please, M. Night Shyamalan). One made-up sob story about Riley suffering from cancer later, Cooper orchestrates the perfect getaway: Riley is invited to dance with her idol in front of everybody, after which the two will be brought backstage to schmooze with Lady Raven and, ultimately, leave the premises without Grant suspecting a thing. If only it were so easy.

The film’s boldest twist comes when Cooper finally accepts that the perimeter is too well guarded and that even this immensely risky scheme is about to fail spectacularly. To this point, nobody could’ve expected Cooper to actually give away that he’s the killer, let alone do so to Lady Raven herself and turn her into a main character in the process. But that’s exactly what he does, blackmailing the Taylor Swift-sized pop star into allowing him and Riley to leave in her personal limo and bypass the armed police swarming the arena.

For me, this wild swerve into unexpected territory was equal parts bold and deflating, however. Once the action leaves the claustrophobic confines of the concert hall, the tightly-constructed thriller loses all of its momentum and limps along. The subsequent sequence at Cooper’s home becomes the point of no return.

It wouldn’t be a Shyamalan movie if the final act didn’t swing for the fences, I suppose. Over the course of several anxiety-filled minutes, we can only watch as Lady Raven plays the only card she has left and insists on taking her surprise guests back to their home. Immediately suspicious of her intentions, Cooper can only smile and pretend to go along, even as he inwardly dreads the alarm bells that this ridiculous series of events will set off with his wife (played by Alison Pill) and son. As the tension mounts, Lady Raven finally makes her move and snatches Cooper’s phone away before locking herself in his bathroom. The jig is up, obviously, with Cooper angrily freaking out on the celebrity and leaving himself with no plausible way to rationalize his actions to his unsuspecting family. Whether you’re still on board with “Trap” or not at this point will depend largely on how much suspension of disbelief you can muster regarding these unusual developments.

In a continuation of the film’s running commentary on the power of technology and the way our phones can foster (or, alternately, complicate) how we communicate, Lady Raven takes these brief moments to make contact with Cooper’s victim, gain as much intel as she possibly can on his location, and send out a livestreaming call to her hordes of fans in the hopes that somebody can save him before it’s too late. The plot only goes even more off the rails from here, involving Cooper fleeing his home, kidnapping the young starlet, and finally returning to exact revenge upon his frightened wife — who, he learns, has apparently suspected Cooper of a nefarious secret all along. This, for whatever it’s worth, is when “Trap” began winning me back.

What do you do when the entire security apparatus of a world-famous pop singer, the FBI, and basically the full might of Philadelphia police force are breathing down your neck? Well, the answer is deceptively obvious: You simply go right back to where it all started. After escaping from his house the first time around by masquerading as a SWAT officer driving Lady Raven to safety, Cooper immediately runs into trouble again when he drives some distance away … only for a crowd of bystanders to figure out that the celebrity is being held captive within the limo. Foiled again, Cooper pulls off yet another disappearing act and pops up in the last place anyone would expect him (despite the heavy cop presence specifically sent to protect his wife).

Logic nitpicks aside, “Trap” at least kicks into another gear as it prepares to go out with a bang — or lose the plot entirely, depending on your perspective. It’s fitting that the entire conflict boils down to one final conversation between Cooper and his wife in their kitchen, as she slowly realizes that her killer husband has returned (and sans shirt, creepily enough, with the implication being that he doesn’t want to get blood on his clothing). Sitting calmly at table, Cooper’s quiet demeanor stands in sharp contrast to his previous actions. And when he finally draws it out of her that she had already suspected him of hiding some sinister secret, first convinced of a possible affair before realizing that it’s much worse than that, Cooper admits to the rage bubbling up inside him. Only a hallucination of his mother (Marcia Bennett), a haunting representation of his traumatic childhood, unbalances him enough for the cops to arrive and arrest him.

Or so they think.

What if the real conceit of “Trap” wasn’t the surprise of following a serial killer as our main protagonist, but rather a final act where audiences find themselves rooting for the villain — against their better judgment — to keep finding a way out of every single trap set for him? Hartnett’s bursting-at-the-seams performance is the linchpin to making any of this work in the first place. At every step, the “Oppenheimer” actor makes it easy to track his deteriorating mental state and pinpoint precisely when his mask begins to slip. Every facial tic, uncontrollable flinch, and off-putting attempt to charm his way out of danger only heightens the stakes and further highlights just how close he is to the brink. And yet, at the same time, his frequent hallucinations of his mother hints at the profound emotional and psychological damage behind his sociopathic tendencies.

This may not be enough to generate anything along the lines of actual investment in this villain, mind you, but what about empathy? In “Trap,” we get to see the one day in Cooper’s life where he finds out that the lines between his domestic life and his murderous secret can no longer remain separate and distinct. As the lines blur and Cooper once again faces the prospects of life behind bars, it’s obviously far too late to spare his family of the trauma they’re about to endure. But the script keeps our perspective firmly with the serial killer and ultimately dares us to accept an ending where the bad guy gets to walk away unscathed, when he pauses on his perp walk outside his home to adjust Riley’s bicycle haphazardly left in the yard. As he’s ushered into a SWAT van and the camera zooms in on Hartnett’s face one last time, having broken off a small piece of the bicycle spoke to free himself of his handcuffs, this final twist proves to be the most effective. Sometimes, the bad guy wins after all.

“Trap” is now playing in theaters.