M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap is a perfect Hitman movie

“Huh, this is kind of familiar,” I thought to myself as I watched Cooper push a woman down a flight of stairs to distract a pair of police officers guarding a set of doors. As Cooper’s attempts to escape grew more erratic and ridiculous, the realization finally dawned on me: I wasn’t just watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie, I was watching the cinematic equivalent of a perma-death, Master Assassin run of Hitman: World of Assassination.

If you’re unfamiliar with the premise of the games, here’s the gist: In Hitman, you play as Agent 47, a bald, suave contract killer who travels the world performing assassinations of high-profile targets on behalf of a clandestine organization that works for the highest bidder. Nearly every mission of nearly every game in the Hitman series plays out the same way: You infiltrate a location, track down your target, execute them in any way you see fit, and then promptly exfiltrate without either being seen, captured, or killed in the process.

Of course, as anyone who’s played a Hitman game will tell you, there’s more to the game than just the killing. Hitman: World of Assassination is a stealth game, yes, but it’s also a goofy puzzle game. The premise of every mission is the same, but the variability of locations and the nature of each individual target demands something else on the part of the player besides ruthless execution: situational awareness, an aptitude for improvisation, and most importantly of all, a sense of creativity that plays into the series’ brand of dark humor.

Don’t be fooled by 47’s sleek three-piece suits, the game’s operatic score, or its exotic and picturesque locales, teeming with brooding fashionistas and dour-faced villains. Every mission in Hitman is populated with a dozen or more Rube Goldbergian death traps waiting to be sprung on a hapless target, to say nothing of the many unique (read: ridiculous) disguises one might discover and don during a playthrough.

Cooper is not a contract killer; he’s a high-functioning sociopath and serial killer. Even if the differences are slight, the two are not the same. Where Cooper and Agent 47 might differ in their respective occupations, they have a surprising amount in common in terms of their modus operandi, as can be seen throughout much of the run time of Trap. Like 47, Cooper has an almost supernatural knack for spotting points of interest; cameras, locked doors, armed security guards, anything that might trip you up in a video game, Cooper’s got eyes on.

As soon as he senses he’s in danger, Cooper’s entire outward demeanor shifts from his dopey dad facade to murderous focus, scoping for every possible opportunity that could afford him escape and going after it with dogged determination. Whether it’s stealing a kitchen uniform, lifting a keycard off of unsuspecting merch salesman, slipping past a group of heavily armed SWAT members and stealing one of their radios to listen in, or orchestrating a gruesome explosion as a distraction to move past a crowd of onlookers, Cooper displays the kind of cunning, guile, and yes, creativity that fans of the Hitman franchise would recognize from their own time playing as Agent 47.

There have been two movie adaptations of the Hitman series to date: 2007’s Hitman, starring Timothy Olyphant, and the 2015 reboot Hitman: Agent 47, starring Rupert Friend. While both had unique interpretations of the game’s aforementioned master assassin, neither of them quite hits the mark in tapping into one of the more understated yet essential components of the series’ overall tone: its dark sense of humor.

Where Hitman’s previous cinematic adaptations leave much to be desired in this respect, Trap excels simply by dint of Shyamalan’s own knack for twisted absurdity. Trap is a tense movie, yes, but it’s also a very funny one. A serial killer unwittingly ensnared in a sting operation is an interesting premise, but the fact that same killer is also a painfully awkward and perpetually put-upon father of a teenage girl is what elevates the situation into hilarity. Combine that with his uncanny ability to ingratiate himself into the good graces of nearly everyone he meets and his barely repressed desperation and anger at having been led into the clutches of federal authorities, and Shyamalan’s film expertly threads the needle between humor and horror to create an experience that’s both entertaining and surprising to watch unfold.

Every action that Cooper took in attempting to escape from Lady Raven’s concert felt like watching back my own panicked improvisations as I fail at one of Hitman’s many “Mission Stories,” emergent prompts that Agent 47 contextually happens upon during the course of a mission that allow him an opportunity to more expeditiously (and often ridiculously) execute his target.

Despite Cooper’s frequent missteps, there’s yet one more trait that he and Agent 47 have in common: persistence. No matter what happens, no matter how spectacularly the shit hits the fan, Agent 47 never gives up until the job is done — a fact that often creates some of Hitman’s funniest and most memorable moments. From chandeliers crashing onto fashion show walkways to rogue surgical robots eviscerating their would-be patients, 47’s determination to eliminate his targets more often manifests in ways that push the plausibility of their execution to their limits. With that in mind, a serial killer attempting to escape a pop idol concert without being caught by the police sounds exactly like the type of scenario that would play out in a mission of Hitman.

He may not be as cool and collected as his video game counterpart when the odds are stacked against him, but Cooper somehow always finds a way to come out on top. He really missed his calling as a globetrotting killer for hire. Oh well; maybe he’ll consider a career change if Trap 2 ever happens.

Trap is available to stream now on Max.