Daddy Hitchcock would be proud. M. Night Shyamalan has made an excellent thriller that would have delighted the master film theorist and audience manipulator. A film that is just as good at being a suspense thriller as it is at playing with protagonists, character motivation, and audience expectations. This is M. Night’s best film since The Sixth Sense, edging out even Unbreakable and Signs… and being better than his most recent good films like Split, The Visit, and Knock at the Cabin.

It’s about a very good dad played by Josh Hartnett who takes his excited teenage girl to a pop concert. He notices a worrying increase in police presence and soon he learn they are here to capture a serial killer.

If you can avoid trailers, do it. I did and was pleased at the twists and turns… and even more astounded the trailers (which I watched when I got home) gave away the best one. I won’t say more on the off chance you go in with virgin eyes. But even if you saw the trailers, there’s plenty of room for wicked surprises and delight.

All film nerds should unite over how inventively M. Night handles point of view and protagonists. The flick switches protagonists on multiple occasions, asking us to side sometimes with a character we shouldn’t. Because the film knows the the audience will side with characters we follow and it plays us beautifully. And when it switched POV, we don’t expect who the new protagonists are and how crafty they can be.

It’ll probably be argued the film goes on too long and, yeah, it kind of does. But it’s always playing with these film ideas so even if we get an extra 15 minutes, it’s doing interesting things with them.

And also darkly comic things. This is not a thriller (or horror) comedy, but it knows when to play up the wicked angles for laughs (while offering limited hokey comic relief… which it has a little, but its never as cringe or overdone as some of M. Night’s past characters).

I loved the villain… so smart, so inventive, so thinking ahead… but also able to be surprised and trapped. It’s clever and smart screenwriting and I hope to see more like this in the future.

This film crackles. It’s wicked, fun, and thrilling without suffering from some of M. Night’s typical “getting high on his own supply” tendencies. It’s written well without some of his awkward cringe. It plays smart with film conventions and manages to surprise, unnerve, and delight.

Score: 95