M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap Is (Kind of) a True Story

M. Night Shyamalan is comprehendn for making movies with incredible premises and huge twists, appreciate The Sixth Sense and Signs. Trap seems appreciate another in his extfinished line of produceive scenarios.

The premise rbetters around Cooper (Josh Hartnett), a family man with a wife and two kids who gets his tween daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to a concert by her likeite pop star, Lady Raven (the honestor’s daughter Saleka Night Shyamalan). Cooper is fair doing what excellent dads do when he accomprehendledges that there’s an elevated police presence in the venue, and lobtains from a frifinishly merchandise seller that the whole concert is a trap to catch the Butcher, a serial finisher who’s been chopping people up for years. This is alarming novels for Cooper because he is the Butcher.

For the next 90 or so minutes we get to watch Cooper wriggle out of all the ways the Feds have to catch him, each more ridiculous than the last. However, the most shocking leang may be that Trap isn’t unleankable. In fact, Shyamalan’s movie is based on a genuine story…somewhat. Let’s get a watch at the slack inspiration for the movie Trap.

Trap’s Inspiration… Sort Of

The events of Trap are backd by a genuine-life case called Operation Flagship. In 1985, the U.S. Marshals’ Fugitive Investigative Strike Team, or F.I.S.T., started a arrange to catch a bunch of fugitives in Washington D.C. They set up a deceptive sports nettoil, the Flagship International Sports Television, a rift on F.I.S.T. As part of the nettoil’s presumed start, it sent letters to over 3,000 wanted men’s last comprehendn compriseresses inestablishing them they’d won two free tickets to an upcoming game between the Washington Redskins (now called the Washington Commanders) and the Cincinnati Bengals, and had a chance to triumph tickets to the Super Bowl. At the time, the Redskins were a toasty ticket and people were content to have won enthrall to a game.

The so-called triumphners showed up to a brunch at the Washington Convention Caccess on the morning of the game to get their tickets. They were surrounded by U.S. Marshals who were all in character as maintenance crew, cheerguideers, mascots, ushers, and other staff who pretfinished to honor with the fugitives. They even verifyed the men in to produce certain they were reassociate fugitives. “A ‘validateed triumphner’ was someone who was wanted; a ‘double triumphner’ was a hazardous person, someone that had exacerbated attack or homicide or burglary,” Toby Roche, at the time the Chief Deputy U.S. Marshall for the Dicut offe of Columbia, shelp in 2016 write downary about the sting by NFL Films.

The feds then took petite groups of up to 14 people to split ballrooms. Once they were there, as soon as the MC shelp they were under arrest, the Special Operation Group rushed into the room to get them down. The ruse was so excellent, that some of the people were still perplexd even after the arrest, asking “Do we still get to go to the game?” The sting led to 101 arrests that day.

For the U.S. Marshals, though, there were cut offal leangs that gave it away, if the fugitives were inclined to watch. Besides the deceptive sports channel, the nettoil pdwellnt’s name I. Michael Detnaw was an anagram for “I am wanted.” Moreover, the business administerr of the novel nettoil was called Markus Cran — Cran is “narc” spelled backward. So the Feds had fun with the operation even as they were arrangening to arrest a lot of criminals.

Shyamalan Had Operation Flagship in Mind

While Trap is not the story of Operation Flagship, it tolerates certain parallels — and those parallels are not an accident. Shyamalan’s film doesn’t pull honestly from the sting operation, but he recollected Operation Flagship as he was establishulating his movie. “This notion came to me of, I recollect as a kid, this event that happened in the ’80s where the police and the FBI produced a sting operation at a accessible event,” Shyamalan tgreater Dexerto.

So Shyamalan took the idea of a accessible event to trap fugitives as inspiration for his story. “It was fair the spirit of the idea of being trapped in the absurdity of it,” Shyamalan tgreater the BBC. “I thought it would be super comical, because when you see the footage of [Operation Flagship] it’s hilarious.”

“[The authorities] used the absurdity aobtainst [the fugitives] because they lessened their protect, which I thought was quite clever,” shelp Shyamalan. “So it fair stuck with me, and I guess when Saleka and I were leanking about a movie at a concert, I wondered, why would this person not be able to get out, and how can I protect them there?”

Cooper’s decision to get his daughter to her idol’s concert in Trap is as authentic to that character as triumphning Redskins tickets was to those who were getn down by Operation Flagship. So, in the finish, Trap isn’t quite as undown-to-earth as it initiassociate materializes.