In M. Night Shyamalan’s latest, Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) is taking his teenage daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to a pop concert. He notices the unusually high police presence around the concert venue and learns from a vendor that the FBI plans to catch a serial killer known as The Butcher, having found out that he will be in attendance. Cooper is revealed to be The Butcher himself. That is not a spoiler because that twist is revealed in the trailer.
The first hour or so concentrates on Cooper and Riley at the concert, and Cooper thinking through various ways to escape when it becomes clear that the FBI are interviewing all adult males on their way out of the venue. It works intermittently well, with a little suspense created.
There are a couple of issues though. With only vague descriptions of the killer, how do law enforcement know he will be there? We do get a plausible explanation for that later, but that is subsequently superseded by a less plausible one. We also get to see way too much of the awful singing by Lady Raven. The director’s daughter, Saleka Shyamalan plays the singer and the film, at times, feels like a promotional video for her hideous warbling. Unfortunately, in the second half, she shows she is a worse actress than she is a singer.
Once the action moves out of the concert venue, things fall apart completely. Cooper gives the FBI the slip three times in unbelievable ways and an extended scene with his wife, Rachel (Alison Pill) is very badly written. Inevitably there is a very unsurprising twist at the end.
Hartnett has received some praise for his performance but I found him not totally convincing as either the doting father or the unhinged killer. Donaghue and Pill are better, though the casting of a 78 year old Hayley Mills as the FBI agent in charge of the operation is a baffling one.
This is not Shyamalan’s worst film, but with Unbreakable his only decent movie, there is some stiff competition.
Rating: 4 out of 10