The Plot Of ‘Trap’ M. Night Shyamalan’s New Movie

M. Night Shyamalan has left audiences reeling in awed surprise with his newest thriller, Trap a title that becomes very evident when our protagonist, a serial killer known as the Butcher played by Josh Hartnett who is introduced as a cool dad Cooper, learns that he has walked right into a trap set for him while at a concert in attendance with his daughter Riely played by Ariel Donoghue.

The film like most thrillers has a rising tension as the Butcher escapes one trap only to fall into another someone set from the beginning and those formed on the spot by those trying to expose him revealing an intricate web of enemies. While the first and second acts take place in the concert the true hero of the story or the Butcher’s antagonist reveals herself in the form of the singer of the concert Lady Raven played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka Shyamalan. Raven becomes the Butcher’s hostage after he weasels his way backstage looking for an exit. Raven in turn manipulates Copper into taking her to his house as a celebrity guest visit for his family as a sigh of cooperation only to escape herself with his current victim.

The plot comes to a head when Raven is recaptured by the Butcher in the back of her limo as both engage in a chase Raven slips her cuffs and disappears into a crowd while Cooper returns home to his family. Cooper’s wife Rachel played by Alison Pill reveals to her husband she was the one who set the tip for the inciting trap and used Cooper’s tools and methods to do so. Before Cooper kills his wife in revenge he is captured by police who take him away in cuffs to face justice. Or so they think as Cooper grabs a spoke of his daughter’s bike and uses it to slip his cuff and the truck setting the Butcher lose in the streets once again.

Shyamalan is never one to leave loose ends and the film ends in a delightfully eerie scene of the innocent t-shirt vendor who told Cooper at the start of the movie that the concert was a trap for the Butcher in an attempt to help out a confused dad recognize Cooper’s wanted poster as the Butcher leaving his horrified face of realization as the final image of a movie jam-packed with turns.