Is This Movie Just a Vehicle for M. Night Shyamalan’s Daughter’s Music Career?
The trailer for Trap arguably promotes Saleka (her stage name) more than the film itself.
Photo: Shutterstock Entertainment
Oppenheimer achieved countless feats, from breaking box office records to sweeping awards season. Most important of all, though, the film prompted many (well, at least me) to consider (or reconsider) the talents of erstwhile Hollywood heartthrob Josh Hartnett. Those of us who still have aging copies of J-14 posters of Hartnett under our childhood bed have long wondered why the hell this man was confined to C and D-list films after 2007. Surely, he should’ve enjoyed a more illustrious career; have you seen Pearl Harbor? Fortunately, M. Night Shyamalan and I appear to be on the same page. Well, kind of.
When the trailer for Shyamalan’s latest film, Trap, dropped on Friday, I was instantly heartened by the sight of Hartnett as a devoted dad taking his teenage daughter to worship her favorite pop idol, “Lady Raven,” a superstar in the vein of Beyoncé or Taylor Swift who is on an arena tour that’s no doubt putting parents like him in debt. Together, Hartnett’s character and his daughter selfie, scream, and scoff down soft pretzels. It’s all very sweet until Hartnett’s character discovers an army of federal agents on the hunt for a serial killer known as the Butcher who, we’re told, “goes around just chopping people up.”