A good thriller film

The story was good but sort of all over the place I liked the main premise for the film and even though the trailers spoiled it for everyone the build up to the dad becoming a psycho was done really well I enjoyed watching the movie slowly go from a fun father daughter flick to basically a horror movie. The movie also knew it’s way around a joke I liked the comedic parts of the film and were very funny and memorable I especially liked the part where the dad tells the security guard that his daughter about a disease she survived to get on stage with the singer because it was such a random lie but was easily the funniest part in the whole movie and the mid credits scene landed a very close second. However I do have 2 problems with it the first being that it isn’t very scary there were a few moments that built in tension but nothing was absolutely terrifying I did like the part where the dad was trying to bust down a door and the singer was trying to get people to save his hostage that was a good scene and probably the scariest part in the movie but that is about where it ends. The second is that the first half of the movie is better after the characters left the concert the movie took a bit of a dip and just wasn’t as good as everything that was going on at the concert, it wasn’t boring but not as entertaining as everything that was going on prior.

Copper was a good leading character and villain at the same time Josh Hartnett gave a really great performance, I liked the way they started off with him being a likeable dad and slowly descending into a madman it was really well written and Hartnett does a brilliant job at portraying a character descending into a deranged killer it was a lot of fun to watch and really funny at times as well. However I do think the movie could’ve done a better job with his darker side, they handled the light hearted father side of his character really well but they could’ve done a better job with his evil side mainly because he’s supposed to be a serial killer but he doesn’t actually kill anyone in the movie he pushes one girl down a flight of stairs and causes another to get doused in hot grease but they both survived so I feel like he should’ve killed a few people as it would’ve made things more interesting and raised the tension a lot higher but he doesn’t. Another thing is how he’s able to get out of literally everything I like how the made him smart and a good strategist but he was able to get out of absolutely everything even when he was eventually caught in the end and it just felt like he was playing a game where he made up all the rules so he can win which is just ridiculous I have heard this is something director M. Night Shyamalan does a lot with his characters but this is the only movie I’ve seen from him so far but I might watch his other movies at some point but for now while Cooper was fun to watch he was a bit too invincible. Riley was perhaps the one I felt sorry for the most I feel like she was made to be quite relatable to some kids and I liked that aspect of her character and I just felt bad for her as the movie went on and her dad became more psychotic cause it was just sad to see her have to deal with this after everything that happened beforehand and I liked how she hugged him at the end even after everything he did. Lady Raven felt like a last minute inclusion for the first half of the movie she was just a background character but then by the second half she’s a main player and is trying to save the guy Cooper is holding captive which just felt very sudden and there wasn’t much build up to it and she just ended up being way too involved. The same thing happened with Cooper’s wife she didn’t show up until really late into the movie and had no scenes prior to it and then at the end they have this conversation and the movie wanted it to be tense and emotional but I felt nothing because it was the first and only scene in the whole movie. 

The climax of the movie was ok I did like the tension built up throughout it and it was cool to see Cooper in full serial killer mode but it just reaffirmed what I said earlier about him being way too overpowered and while entertaining it wasn’t very memorable. 

Overall Trap is good in it’s first half but it’s second half is pretty lacking.