Trap (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, and Saleka Shyamalan.

Trap stars Josh Hartnett as a devoted father taking his tween daughter to see her favorite artist in concert, but their calm dad-daughter night out ends up overlapping with an enormous sting operation to catch a serial killer at large. I was a big fan of Shyamalan's previous film, Knock at the Cabin, but wow, did this one NOT work for me. Its fascination with criminal profiling tries too hard to be deep and instead just spits out a bunch of stereotypes and psychobabble that are already wildly overdone. It takes a fun premise and weighs it down with bland moralizing, the kind that was extremely common in the early 2000s and late 90s, but this is significantly less interesting. The one positive in here is Josh Hartnett, who truly is giving his all in this movie when it doesn't deserve it. The level of fun he's having with his role at least brings some measure of enjoyability to what is otherwise a tedious slog.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Trap (2024)

lost to Cypher (#1987 → #1976)

beat A Month by the Lake (#2974 → #2977)

lost to My Blueberry Nights (#2480 → #2479)

beat The Exorcism of Emily Rose (#2729 → #2764)

beat Flypaper (#2603 → #2604)

beat Liz & Dick (#2540 → #2547)

beat Chimes at Midnight (#2514 → #2513)

lost to La Condesa (#2494 → #2486)

lost to Guarding Tess (#2502 → #2500)

lost to Pacific Rim (#2507 → #2497)

beat No Country for Old Men (#2504 → #2510)

beat Streets of Fire (#2508 → #2509)

Final spot: Ranked #2504/3974 on my Flickchart, 37%.