I’ve defended M. Night Shyamalan for years, so I’m disappointed by Trap’s ending

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Trap (2024)

As one who goes to Night Shyamalan Movies expect enjoyable absurdity, I can’t help but feel let down when TrapThe ending was so uncharacteristically reasonable. If I try to judge Josh Hartnett’s comeback objectively, 2024 Trap is by no means a bad movie. Hartnett gives another one of those late-career performances that channels his easy charisma into a darker place, the pacing is tense, and there are a handful of fun supporting characters. However, as someone who once defended M. Night Shyamalan’s silly but fun twist endings at length, I was still disappointed.

when TrapFinally arrived, the biggest surprise was my lack of surprise. The last-minute twist I was expecting from the director was nowhere to be found, and I was left with a serviceable thriller that worked fine but could have been directed by any number of journeymen/women. Shyamalan The sixth sense had everyone dazzled by the ingenuity of its twist, but 2004’s unfairly maligned The Village and 2002’s Guilty Pleasure wonders Left viewers equally shocked, even if their twists made much less sense. In contrast, even TrapThe post-credits scene was unsurprising.

The end of the trap did not live up to M’s expectations. Night Shyamalan

Trap doesn’t have an outlandish twist like most Shyamalan movies

Like many viewers, I don’t come to M. Night Shyamalan movies expecting a perfectly acceptable thriller like Trap. I look for the director’s work to see twists that don’t quite add up but shock me so much that I find it hard to care. TrapThe ending could have revealed that Hartnett’s Cooper was not really the killer and that the FBI was focused on catching the wrong person because the unhinged protagonist only believed himself to be the killer. The movie could have ended with Jonathan Langdon’s Jamie helping Cooper escape, only to discover he was an FBI agent.

Lady Raven may have been Cooper’s unlikely accomplice throughout Traps whole storyOr Cooper’s wife Rachel could have revealed she was working with her husband. There are at least a dozen wild twists that could have elevated Traps story not in a traditional sense, but in the cheerfully wild way that makes M. Night Shyamalan’s movies unique. Not all of M. Night Shyamalan’s twists work, but all of them make his movies stand out in a crowded market. TrapIn contrast, felt like just another horror thriller that any competent director could have put together.

M. Night Shyamalan’s previous movies had better endings than Trap

M. Night Shyamalan can typically be relied on for a wild ending

It’s easy to list how Shyamalan’s best movies are stronger than Trap. The sixth sense And Unbreakable Feature two historical big twist endingsBut they also have two of Bruce Willis’ best mid-career performances and a strong supporting cast. It is more instructive to compare Shyamalan’s lesser movies Trap And see how even their twists could have elevated the thriller. 2015’s found footage horror The visit is another lonely-place horror thriller where a family member turns out to be a malignant murderer, and his twist is almost laughable and predictable.

however, The visit Worked for me because the movie refused to admit just how obvious his twist was. By the time the heroes spilled stuff on their webcam just so their mother conveniently couldn’t see their grandparents, it was pretty blatantly clear where the story was heading. Still, this worked much better than that Trap Refuse to offer any surprise, twist or subversion of expectations. Similarly, 2016s split Wasn’t perfect, but his twist linked the movie to the larger universe of Shyamalan’s offerings and proved it was more than a standalone story. in contrast, Trap Felt small and inconsequential.

Why the end of the trap did not work for me

Trap’s ending was exactly what I expected from the movie’s premise

When I saw the first trailer for TrapI immediately knew how the story of the movie would go. TrapIts villainous protagonist would spend most of the movie trying to escape the concert trap before, eventually, a druggy third act took his chase outside the venue. There wouldn’t be many deaths since that would be too dark, and the story would wrap up with him caught but not dead. Then I saw who was directing TrapAnd I was much more excited.

Although the movie’s rating meant Traps lack of character deaths is still inevitable, I thought anything was possible with Shyamalan at the helm. Perhaps Cooper’s daughter would turn out to be his accomplice in the murder, or perhaps he would manage to escape from the FBI and kill his family in a bold twist. Cooper could have imagined Jamie altogether, or the FBI could have ended up catching someone else when he misled them. Traps director Night Shyamalan I was hoping for a wild ending, but the biggest surprise was the movie’s predictable conclusion.