When I find out about this latest M. Night Shyamalan movie, I was very curious and was interested to give it a try. As it was released mid of last week together with various other new films, I decided to see this together with another film in our latest movie marathon on Saturday. All right, I'll get down to it now.

Brief Synopsis

Cooper (Josh Hartnett - Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Black Hawk Down etc) and his teen daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue - Wolf Like Me TV series etc) went to a live concert of famous singer Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan) to celebrate Riley's good grades. During the concert, Cooper started noticing a lot of police were guarding the building where the concert was held and began questioning the reasons. 

So what was the reason behind all the high security measures in the concert place? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Synopsis

Yes, I purposely did not put any more info on this film as with all M. Night Shyamalan movies, it's better to find out yourself what's it all about, including the twists that is his usual trademark. If I revealed any more information, it would likely ruin the surprise. Anyway, this movie was categorized as psychological thriller which I thought was really spot on. This time the story did not have supernatural elements like in some of his previous works but the twist was still there, although it was not as shocking as his more critically acclaimed movies like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Glass, Old and so on. Nevertheless, my wife and I were still entertained by this.

One of the factors that made this movie interesting for us was definitely the performance of Josh Hartnett. He was so convincing in portraying his role and my wife was particularly in awe with his facial expressions as he could turned them into various kinds so easily. I think one of the critics was quite impressed as well and thought it was the highlight of the movie. Having read more on the comments about the film, people's views seemed to be a bit divisive. However, I personally was pretty satisfied with the intensity and suspense. Although it was psychological thriller, but it's not the slow burn kind which was more exciting. 

Aside from the names mentioned above, there were few additional support cast such as Hayley Mills (The Parent Trap 1961 version, Wild at Heart TV series etc) as Dr. Grant, Alison Pill (Star Trek: Picard TV series, Midnight in Paris etc) as Rachel, Jonathan Langdon (Run the Burbs TV series etc) as Jamie and few others in minor capacity. There was even the cameo of Shyamalan himself which should not come as a surprise since he used to do it every now and then. Btw Shyamalan was credited as director, writer and also producer. In case you're wondering, Saleka is the daughter of M. Night but she is also a real life singer. Oh, I also read that the singing was done on stage as if it was a real concert with thousands of extras (who were not told they were actually in a movie), to give a realistic feel. This was really awesome to my opinion as it meant they put a lot of effort in creating the concert scenes.

The film had a duration of 105 minutes including closing credits. It did not have any post end credit scenes, but it had one rather funny mid end credit scene. The film's built up was pretty good for me and there was one great twist that my wife and I did not see coming (but not the ending scene which was quite predictable). Looking at the ending, I think Shyamalan might be thinking of having sequels in the future, or possibly shared universe with other characters in his previous works. Let's see if he can still manage to surprise us in the future.

Overall, this was another enjoyable M. Night Shyamalan film. I do not think this was his very best work, but it was still quite worth to watch, if not for the thrill, at least for the wonderful Josh Hartnett who showed his capability. I liked the unexpected intelligent twist and a bit of humor in a generally dark premise. However the rather predictable ending and the lack of Shyamalan's unique incredible shocking twist made this felt more like the psychological thriller which are plenty around. So if you want to see the latest work from Shyamalan, then you can certainly give it a try and most probably you would enjoy this especially if you are his fan. But from neutral point of view, it might not be his best work.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars