Josh Hartnett – The Magnificent 60s

The nepo is in – resulting in an all-time calamitous vanity project. Not only has director M. Night Shyamalan chosen to devote a good 30 minutes of the running time to showcasing his daughter Saleka’s talents as a singer (and for I know she may be the next big thing) but has also decided that this movie would provide an ideal opportunity for her movie debut. On top of that, star Josh Hartnett has opted for a cartoonish portrayal of his character, all goggle eyes, wiggling eyebrows and over-the-top facial expression.

Having bored us to death for well over an hour, the director then opts to let fly with twist after nonsensical twist. Virtually every law enforcement person has uniform emblazoned with FBI, POLICE, or SWAT, but you might as well have branded them all as DUMBASS for all the sense they show. Despite theoretically having some kind of description of the serial killer known as The Butcher (top marks for originality), the cops proceed to pull out of a concert any number of people who bear no resemblance at all to each other.

The set-up, should you be remotely interested, sees Cooper (Josh Hartnett) taking teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a sold-out concert by latest pop sensation Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalen) only to discover the venue is crawling with cops and FBI hoping to ensnare said killer by the simple device of stopping all of the 3,000 male attendees as they leave unless in one of their random audience selections they happen upon the villain. Cooper is soon alert to the problem and finds clever ways to avoid detection, including convincing Saleka’s uncle (M. Night Shyamalen) whom he couldn’t know from Adam that his daughter has recovered from leukemia, the kind of sob story that will result in Riley being selected to join the singer on stage for one number.

Cooper then manages to nip out the back door by taking Lady Raven hostage. Though, wait for it, it turns out that the FBI have trained her about what to do in the event of such an occurrence, which is some psychobabble about behaving like his mother and telling him to stop being effectively (shades of Life of Brian) such a naughty boy. Turns out, too, his wife Rachel (Alison Pill) has harbored sufficient doubts about her husband that she’s alerted the police that the killer is going to be attending the concert, hence the manhunt, but not done the sensible thing of fully identifying him which, of course, would stop him killing anyone else and save the police the cost of putting a couple of hundred cops on duty at the concert hall (some people!). Nor with a kettle boiling has she the gumption to pour the boiling water over him.

Just when it looks as if clever Lady Raven has outwitted our thug and called on her social media cohort to track down his latest victim, we’re treated to a whole spree of idiotic twists, mostly of the catch-and-escape-catch-and-escape variety.

Mostly, I felt insulted. I’ve been loyal to M. Night Shyamalen over the past quarter of a century, even recently popping back to the cinema to view (and review) his classic The Sixth Sense (1999). After Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002), his output became variable, disastrous ventures like The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013) partly redeemed by Split (2016) and Glass (2019). He’s kept hmself in the game by independent production and low-budgets, his name retaining enough marquee pull to keep his pictures in profit.

But with Trap he’s just showing contempt for his audience. Will Smith I remember going down a similar route, demanding his offspring have major roles in some of his projects, but the whole nepo business is getting out of hand. Sure, you can’t blame kids for being born to parents who are global superstars nor for believing they are entitled tofollow suit. But Hollywood is littered with kids who were showered with praise or given unfair advantage only to find audiences held their efforts in little regard.

This might well have worked if we’d got to the twists quicker, lopped off a good 20 minutes of concert footage and stuck to the narrative. As it was, by the time we get to anything that could remotely be deemed thrilling, the audience has fallen asleep.

Josh Hartnett’s all-time worst performance. M. Night Shyamalan’s worst film. Hopefully, all this effort to build up his daughter’s singing career is worth it because I can’t be the only one who feels duped.

Avoid.

The only redemptive factor in this too-clever-for-its-own-good post-ironic mess is a gorgeous performance by Hugh Grant. The one-time romantic male lead has shorn the floppy locks, put to bed the trademark stumbling over words and taken to the dark side. From pantomime villain in Paddington 2 (2017), through small-screen A Very English Scandal (2018) and The Undoing (2020) to Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023), Grant has reinvented himself as a baddie par excellence.

If there is any justice in the world or, put another way, some Hollywood or streaming mogul wanting to cash in on an instantly attractive character, they should be thinking of a film or television series revolving around his wonderful Cockney billionaire criminal, the epitome of the diamond geezer. The moment he appears, about a quarter of the way in, the film lights up. When he departs, it falls flat again.

Not surprisingly, given it is the embodiment of the over-egged pudding. The movie’s idea of character depth is to make all-round thug Nathan (Jason Statham) a wine connoisseur. Statham’s done pretty well to turn from a supporting actor to lean B-movie (Crank, 2006) shoot-‘em-ups to second banana in big budget pictures like the Fast and Furious franchise and The Meg (you didn’t think Jason was the actual star, did you, when there was a monster the size of a city block on the loose). In growl and unshaven cheeks, he may look like Bruce Willis, but Bruce Willis he ain’t. And he ain’t Charles Bronson either, despite rolling the dice twice on The Mechanic( 2011 and 2016).

Whitehall mandarin Knighton (Eddie Marsan) calls on smooth operative Nathan (Cary Elwes), who spends a lot of time eating, to put together a bunch of government-sponsored crooks – Orson (Jason Statham), Sarah (Aubrey Plaza) and JJ (Bugzy Malone) – to find a stolen artefact and prevent it being sold on to international gangsters or terrorists. Only problem is, nobody knows what was stolen. But somebody must know its value because another gang, led by turncoat Mike (Peter Ferdinando), is chasing the same item.

There’s a ton of computer jiggery-pokery that mostly gets in the way but suffice to say top-ranked crook Greg (Hugh Grant) is seen as being at the centre of whatever is going on, whatever that is, your guess is as good as mine. Lo and behold – what larks! – there’s a dead easy way to get inside Greg’s fortress (a giant ocean-going yacht): he is a huge fan of action star Danny (Josh Hartnett) who is recruited to play himself (a conceit too post-ironic for simple irony).

For a man as rich as Greg and as generous – he raises money for war orphans – Greg keeps poor company and consequently leads Nathan’s team to their prey, cueing burglaries, chases, fisticuffs. But most of the excitement is undercut by the aforementioned jiggery-pokery. It’s hard to concentrate on the action if every two seconds Nathan or Sarah is listening to a voice in his ear or we are being told by a third party that such some cute implausible jiggery-pokery is simplifying their tasks.

There are some electrifying sequences: the opening robbery taking place to the sound of Nathan’s footsteps echoing along a long marble hallway; a burglary where the occupants, rendered unconscious by jiggery-pokery, are so out of it Nathan can remove rings from fingers and watches from wrists.

But all the time this ultra-clever stuff is going on you just wished director Guy Ritchie (Wrath of Man, 2021) would have the sense of turn the camera back on to the one real characters in the ensemble, Greg, who doesn’t need anyone whispering in his ear or rely on jiggery-pokery to get through a scene.

Two brilliantly-scripted scenes demonstrated the talent gap between Grant and Statham. Nathan has his eye on Sarah and the scene between them where he imagines an immediate sexual connection is toe-curlingly superb. Nathan has a scene where, confusingly, he answers “yes” to each of Nathan’s questions and it comes off like a guide in how not to play comedy.

I’m not usually one to thank streaming giants for putting cinema-ready material on the small screen, but here I’m pretty grateful for saving me the expense. I’d seen a trailer for this months ago and thought it sounded pretty good. But if I’d seen it at the cinema I’d have been far more disappointed given the time and effort involved. As it was, I could stop the show and go back to watch the Hugh Grant scenes.

The concept could have been an ideal picture if it had come down to a more bare-bones story of two jumped-up thugs trying to gain the upper hand. I feel sorry for Statham. If Hugh Grant hadn’t delivered such a terrific performance, he wouldn’t have the movie stolen from under his feet. Two one-time big stars, Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride, 1987) and Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down, 2001) play against type while Aubrey Plaza (Emily the Criminal, 2022), mostly loaded down with exposition, sparkles.

Watch it for Hugh Grant.

Tag: Josh Hartnett

Trap (2024) * – Seen at the Cinema

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2022) ***