[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]
Never let the two lives touch.
Trap is a film about identity. Its narrative revolves around the masks that we wear in public, the “true” faces that we reveal in our most private moments, and the reconciliation between these conflicting personae—finding one’s “authentic” self somewhere in the synthesis.
Protagonist Cooper—alias The Butcher, a.k.a. “that freakin’ nutjob that goes around chopping people up”—is both a doting father and a sadistic serial killer. While it’s tempting to dismiss his awkward pantomime of domestic bliss as a mere charade, however, his love for his family is just as genuine as his obsession with his macabre “hobby.” Thus, when he finds himself in the middle of an elaborate sting operation (“This whole concert is a trap!”), he must choose which half of his fractured psyche he values more: would he rather embrace his violent compulsions… or enjoy some quality time with his daughter?
Josh Hartnett excels in the lead role, effortlessly conveying the complex, contradictory facets of his character’s personality—from his cold, calculating cruelty as he seizes control of the chaotic situation to his increasing desperation and irrationality as the metaphorical noose tightens around his neck to his repressed guilt and self-loathing when his sins are finally exposed. M. Night Shyamalan’s direction is equally superb, utilizing split diopter lenses, disorienting Dutch angles, and unnervingly intimate P.O.V. shots (even during basic scene coverage) to craft an atmosphere that is simultaneously spectacularly maximalist and suffocatingly claustrophobic. The early sequence in which Cooper slowly realizes that he’s inadvertently blundered straight into a veritable spider’s web of police officers and federal agents is a particularly impressive marriage of performance and visual storytelling.
Trap is far from perfect: the tone is goofy as hell (which is at least partially intentional), the plot is built on a tenuous foundation of contrivance and coincidence, and the dialogue is often unwieldy and unnatural. When the movie is firing on all cylinders, though, it’s difficult to care about such superficial flaws. Lean, efficiently crafted, and immaculately structured, it evokes the trashy thrillers of the mid-2000s—and honestly, the scariest thing about it is that it makes me nostalgic for that caliber of cinematic quality.
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