Josh Hartnett and Saleka Shyamalan star in the latest film from the director of Signs, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and others.
to capture him. This man, who is by all appearances a normal father named Cooper, is actually a brutal serial killer nicknamed the Butcher. And he’ll stop at nothing to not just escape this trap, but make sure his daughter has no idea about any of it.
Josh Hartnett plays Cooper/the Butcher and gives one of the performances of his career. From scene to scene, we watch as Cooper transforms himself between each opposed half. It creates great tension and at times he all but reverberates on screen, half of him wanting to kill, half of him wanting to be a cool dad to his daughter . Unfortunately, the rest ofdoesn’t have that same level of energy or excitement.
The setting is a Lady Raven concert—with the fictional pop star played by real-life artist Saleka Shyamalan. Shyamalan, the daughter of the director, helped mastermind the film with her father and wrote all of its music specifically for the movie. On the one hand, that gives the character of Lady Raven some welcome authenticity. On the other hand, none of the songs are particularly catchy or impact the movie in any noteworthy way. As a result, everything feels one-note. Pun intended.
Fighting up against that is the inherently interesting idea that the audience is simultaneously hoping that the Butcher gets caught, but is also curious to see how he could escape. Shyamalan stacks everything against the character but then often, and quite obviously, drops in a tiny nugget that tips his hand: “There’s no way out, except backstage of course.” Things like that. So along the way, we have an idea of where things are going but are still desperate to see how they play out.
That shifts drastically in the third act though when the entire nature of the film itself changes. Obviously we won’t spoil it here but onceis less about the trap and more about the characters, it starts to fly. You get a real sense that Shyamalan’s idea was hindered a bit by its guardrails and you wish the movie was more of the ending than the beginning.is never, ever boring. Shyamalan simply has a way of coming up with an idea that keeps you on the edge of your seat until all is revealed.
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