Cast:
Josh Hartnett (Cooper), Ariel Donoghue (Riley), Saleka Shyamalan (Lady Raven), Alison Pill (Rachel), Hayley Mills (Dr. Josephine Grant), Jonathan Langdon (Jamie), Mark Bacolcol (Spencer), Marnie McPhail (Jody's mom), and Kid Cudi (the Thinker) Written and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan (#039 - The Sixth Sense, #902 - Split, #1183 - Unbreakable, #1184 - Glass, #2164 - Signs)
Review:
"For me, being original and having certain aspects, let's say like highest quality audience movies is what I want to make, and being proud and honored to make audience movies. Maybe other people might think of genre as a lesser art form. I don't think of it that way. "
Strangely, for a month called "Acknowledged in August", this film may actually qualify as worth being acknowledged because of the apparent divide in what people think of this film. It's interesting to see the progression of interest in the films of M. Night Shyamalan, if you think about it, particularly since this month happens to be the 25th anniversary of the release of his first major film in The Sixth Sense (1999). Even among the films (Trap is the 13th of his since the release of Sense) considered as part of his "lower tier", one always seems to have plenty to say about a filmmaker that really doesn't pack as many twists in his films as people think. At any rate, Shyamalan has stated that the film was inspired in part by conversations he had with his daughter about the nature of concert and theatrical experiences being similar and what could happen if one puts those together. Basically, this is how one gets the pitch of "The Silence of the Lambs at a Taylor Swift concert". Of course, in real life, one really can find actual examples of crook-catching in say, "Operation Flagship", which was an actual sting operation that was successful in capturing a select group of criminals tricked into a giveaway involving football tickets.
Sure, I understand why this particular film will vary in enjoyment from person to person. It relies heavily on its primary actor to carry the film that is mostly enclosed in one location to go along with a third act that will probably try the patience of those who seem to have a checklist for thrillers. That being said, I enjoyed it pretty well as a psychological thriller that, well, has fun. I actually found a few parts worth chuckling along with because of the sheer curiosity that comes with positioning the whole film on a family man who just happens to be a murderer. It is a cat-and-mouse game where one is firmly watching the cat that decides at some point to just throw up the board for tongue-in-cheek enjoyment, but your milage obviously will vary because, well, heaven forbid a movie play around with what you might see in a thriller. One rolls with the concert sequence in the most singular sense from the frenzy of people to the array of cell phones that love to record the stuff they are already seeing while having the tension about just what could turn next in the mind of someone who could be called the "friendly neighborhood serial killer". To put it mildly, Hartnett is the star attraction in a way I really should've seen coming, because there are quite a few thrillers (or horror, whatever) involving actors playing against type, and Hartnett plays it with such unnerving confidence. For better or worse, his performance dominates the film where one, well, doesn't have too much to say about the cast around him, although Donoghue is about on par for what one probably expects from a starstruck person. In an industry where quite a few folks could be accused of "nepotism", I can't really fault this for being a father-daughter piece in terms of one writing and performing their own music, although I can't really say the music is any better in terms of energy (it isn't Purple Rain, to put it mildly) than her part to play in the third act, which is adequate at best. Sure, Pill and Mills are fine, but one gets the feeling that in all of the routine-playing, only Hartnett has the resolve to make the viewer care one way or the other about just where it all is going to finish; of course, with Langdon, he provides the most curious moment of the film in dropping exposition along with seeing Hartnett interact with another person not related to him (and a certain subsequent scene). In general, the 105-minute runtime makes for a pretty neat package that grips one's attention in the tension of what could and could not happen with so many people around: consider the effort taken to get an apron at one point by possibly ruining someone's life in laying oil onto a fryer and how the film briskly moves along. The third act moves it on to a different type of trail because of the fact that the movie has decided one can't have it all set in a concert, but I like the shaky feeling that comes with the blurring of family man and butcher man when it comes to figuring out what is the difference between a man of pieces and the pieces that make up a person. In the end, "the process" is what I care for in a film, and I think Shyamalan's attempts at making a thriller within a concert is an engaging one worth following all the way to the end because of Hartnett's commitment to it all. I can't say I know the work of Shyamalan as well as the next guy, but I will say that he sure made a worthy attempt at a ride for the audience to sit and absorb.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Oscar (1991), the John Landis comedy with Sylvester Stallone
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