Bookshelf Battle

Lights! Cameras! Action! Murder!

BQB here with a review of M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s latest film.

I give this film a solid B Plus. I don’t think it’s going to be remembered much a year from now, but it’s a solid entry and if you’re a fan of suspense then it’s not a waste of time. It’s not a steak from Nobu but it’s not a McSteakwhich from McDonald’s. It’s a fairly juicy steak from Applebees made by a line cook who was on his A game the night when you sauntered in looking for cheap, easy grub.

The plot? Cooper (Josh Hartnett) takes his teenage daughter to a concert headlined by super famous pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). Upon arrival, Cooper sees insane levels of security, with police officers and SWAT teams roaming the corridors. When a t-shirt vendor lets it slip that police received a tip that the infamous serial killer known as “The Butcher” will be in attendance at the concert and that all the venue employees have been included in on a plan to turn the concert into a trap to catch the killer, we learn that, horror of horrors, Cooper is the madman everyone is looking for.

Yes, by day, Cooper lives the life of a boring, humdrum, suburban dad with a wife and kids and there are some lighthearted moments when daughter Riley (Alison Pill) suffers her father’s uncoolness yet has to put up with him tagging along because he’s her ride and the only way she can attend the performance of her favorite singer is with her parental chaperone.

By night, Cooper kidnaps, tortures and murders random strangers for fun and games, always managing to keep his two lives separate until now.

Overall, it’s an escape film. With police posted at every exit, questioning every adult male in attendance before they leave, it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught. We, the audience, step into a psychopath’s shoes as he balances his two lives. Somehow, he must figure out how to escape a crowded concert arena where police are watching everyone so he is not held accountable for his heinous crimes. But also, he is a dad so he can’t just leave his beloved daughter there alone unattended and he can’t just drag her away, kicking and screaming from her favorite pop diva’s performance without a good explanation.

Yes. He must find an escape plan that meets with daughter’s approval and/or keeps her from figuring him out. Strangely, you find yourself rooting for him to escape because the film is from his perspective, so it’s almost makes you feel like you’re in his shoes and need to escape yourself, yet you also realize he has done terrible things and needs to be punished somehow.

M. Night Shyamalan, he who did many films with twist endings but only had one good twist ending with the Sixth Sense, abandons the twist ending here. There are plenty of twists but overall its a pretty linear story. I’m glad he let go of the twist ending premise because he’s great at telling stories that are suspenseful but his many twist ending movies were always silly, always trying to recapture that one time he caught lightning in the bottle.

Also, this is the summer where the Shyamalan daughters enter the family business in a big way. Ishana made her directorial debut with The Watchers in June and Saleka plays Lady Raven, getting a chance to display her vocal skills. She also plays a role in saving the day.

I won’t give away too much other than to say I enjoyed the first half of the film when it was all about Cooper trying to escape the arena but the second half of the film, when he was out and about, seemed to get a bit silly and unlikely, IMO.

Then again, a lot of suspension of disbelief is required. The premise is that the po-po found a Lady Raven ticket receipt accidentally dropped at one of the Butcher’s crime scenes and they have a list of unknown individuals fitting certain descriptions who witnesses spotted walking away from said crime scene. The goal of the police op is to monitor the concert for anyone matching those descriptions, which would eventually lead to Cooper.

Yeah, BS. In reality, with today’s computer tech, they could easily just scan the receipt and find out that Cooper bought and then send the SWAT team to bash down his effing door and arrest him while he’s in his underwear in his bathroom taking his morning dump.

So ultimately, yeah, it felt like M Night basically wrote this movie to give his daughter a starring vehicle but if you suspend disbelief, it’s pretty good. And I have to give M Night kudos for his first decent cameo. He always puts himself in his movies and always seems out of place but here, he plays his daughter’s uncle, so I guess that’s not too far off. He’s actually believable whereas in most of his other movies, you just yawn and look at your watch and wonder if you can slip to the bathroom while M Night strokes his ego on screen.

Is there nepotism afoot here? I suppose but its still a good movie and nepotism is the spoils of capitalism. You work hard and are able to hand something even better to your kids. You can argue against it but I tell you, my parents tried their darndest to nepotise me. “Oh no,” I said. “I’ll be my own man and pave my own way,” I said.

What do I have to show for it? This non-monetized blog read only by 3.5 readers and a big pair of rubber crocs that I wear non-ironically so yes, give me a time machine and I’ll go back and allow my parents to nepotize the shit out of me.

Double bonus points that this film stars Hayley Mills as Dr. Grant, the psychological profiler who leads the operation. Who is Hayley Mills, you say? Well, she’s 78 years young today, but in her prime, she was one of Disney’s top child actresses and played both twins in the original Parent Trap! At first, I admit I rolled my eyes, thinking what woke tomfoolery is this that an old woman is bossing around various SWAT teams but once I realized who it was, I allowed it. Perhaps this will be the start of a Hayley Mills career resurgence, though hopefully not in the Betty White direction where they have her do the “ha ha the classically trained proper old lady said naughty things” routine.

Parent Trap? Trap? I wouldn’t put it past M Night for casting her just for that. He’s that meta.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Bonus points that this, Twisters, and pretty much every film was filled to capacity at my theater this weekend so people must be turning off streaming and getting to the cinema to beat the August heat.