Trap brings the audiences into a wild movie-going experience that is packed to the bring with spoiler-filled goodness all anchored by Cooper's (aka The Butcher) plot to evade law enforcement.
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap revolves around the story of Cooper as he takes his daughter, Riley, to see beloved pop artist Lady Raven perform live. He eventually finds out that the concert is a trap to catch him.
The 2024 thriller earned overly positive reviews from critics, generating hype for its August 2 premiere date in theaters.
Trap Plot and Spoilers Explained
While Trap begins with a typical father-daughter bond, the 2024 movie does not waste time to acknowledge that Cooper (Josh Hartnett) has a far more sinister persona he is hiding, and the concert is staged purely as a trap to capture him.
The main goal of Trap is simple: identify and capture The Butcher in a sea of 20,000 people attending Lady Raven's (Saleka Shyamalan) sold-out concert.
Some pointed out that the movie's pop star, Lady Raven, is quite similar to Taylor Swift due to her insane popularity and clear connection to young girls.
What makes Trap terrifying is that the movie's plot could happen in real life, and a serial killer could easily have already attended a major concert in the past decade without anyone knowing it.
The movie may have been over if not for the concert crew member, Jamie (Jonathan Langdon), spilling the tea to the actual killer, Cooper, during one encounter early on.
Jamie's innocent yet selfish act leads to a series of events that allow Cooper to monitor his captors while planning his next move.
All of this is happening while Cooper still tries his best to bond with his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), despite being absent during a good chunk of the concert.
How Did Cooper Evade the FBI & Police?
Cooper uses everything in his arsenal to outsmart law enforcement, from manipulating people by deliberately lying to causing small acts of chaos to distract police officers.
He befriends Jamie (the concert crew member) which leads to him stealing his access card. He then uses the card to get ahold of an FBI earpiece so that he can be one step ahead of them.
What makes him dangerous is the fact that he is a regular dad on the outside, but a cold-blooded killer on the inside.
For Cooper, Trap is like a case of, "I'm not in this cage with you, but you are in this cage for me," where he uses the concert to his advantage. It is quite scary to see there is no sense of panic for Cooper despite the overwhelming odds stacked against him.
While he seems to always have something up his sleeve, he realizes that it will be hard for him to exit the premises, so he uses Riley as a way to escape.
Cooper Uses Lady Raven To Escape
Cooper talks to a spotter at the concert (who is revealed to be Trap director M. Night Shyamalan) to share a fake story about Riley recovering from Leukemia.
The sob story works, which leads to Riley being given access to perform alongside Lady Raven onstage. This also means that Cooper is granted an all-access pass, making his escape a walk in the park.
Despite the all-access pass, every single male attendee during the concert is being questioned before exiting the premises.
Realizing that he has no way of escaping, Cooper pulls Lady Raven aside and tells her straight away that he is, in fact, The Butcher.
He threatens her that he will kill his hostage with a tap on his phone if she doesn’t allow them to ride with her in her limousine (this is the only way to get out without security checks).
An Intense Confrontation at Cooper’s Home
Amid this tension and drama, Cooper's desperate move to reveal himself to Lady Raven immediately backfires after she uses it to her advantage.
She asks Riley if she can visit her home, using this opportunity to get to know The Butcher's family and also find a way to alert the authorities.
She uses every way to distract the family, knowing full well that Cooper cannot touch her out in the open.
After playing a song for them, Lady Raven immediately grabs Cooper's phone to take a selfie with Riley. She then rushes to the washroom, locking herself in to go live on her Instagram and ask for help.
After an intense confrontation where Cooper locks his family inside Riley’s room, he kidnaps Lady Raven, but he is ultimately stopped by the FBI's arrival.
His expertise is front and center after evading the FBI yet again by using a secret trap door in his house. He then poses as Lady Raven's limo driver to kidnap her and seek revenge.
However, she outsmarts him by rolling down the windows of her limo to grab the attention of onlookers. Although the FBI arrives just in the nick of time, Cooper once again escapes, using the crowd of Lady Raven’s fans as a distraction.
Although he managed to escape several tight situations, Cooper's weakness, which is his family, comes back to bite him in the end.
In a final confrontation, it is revealed that Cooper’s wife, Rachel (Alyson Pill), orchestrated the whole trap in Lady Raven’s concert since she was the first to find out that her husband was The Butcher.
Rachel left a Lady Raven concert ticket in one of his hideouts, ultimately leading to the FBI’s involvement.
A standoff between Cooper and Rachel ensues, with Rachel using drugs to subdue her husband who is then caught by the feds.
The final moments of Trap see Cooper using a bicycle’s wire wheel to get out of the handcuffs, with the last shot showing him laughing hysterically at the back of the FBI's vehicle, seemingly implying that he’s about to escape.
The ambiguous ending suggests that Cooper may have escaped from the FBI's clutches, meaning that he could target Rachel as his last victim (he did say that he only needs to kill one last time before ending his life).
Another potential scenario is Cooper failing to escape due to the number of convoys attached to his vehicle. However, given that Trap proves that he always has a plan, it is hard to not count him out.
Trap is now playing in theaters worldwide.
Read more about other thriller movies:
Land of Bad Movie Cast, Characters & Actors (Photos)
