4
2
I went into Dave Bautista’s latest action-thriller Trap House expecting more than the usual guns-blazing rampage. The trailer looked promising, and Bautista has already proven he is a force of nature on screen—a blockbuster wrestling star turned legitimate Hollywood powerhouse. I missed the film’s limited theatrical run, but finally caught it on Digital over the weekend. Make no mistake: Trap House brings brutal R-rated firepower. The problem is that it keeps wrestling with its own identity. Credit director Michael Dowse and co-writer Gary Scott Thompson—the mind also behind the Fast and the Furious franchise—for trying to break out of the standard cartel-action comfort zone.
The film throws Sicario into a blender with a modern-day The Goonies, mixing teen adventure with hard-hitting shootouts and a body count that keeps climbing. That collision creates the movie’s biggest weakness: a serious personality disorder that turns the ride into a mostly satisfying but uneven blast. It should have punched harder and landed with more force. Still, without Bautista’s presence, this one might have vanished into total obscurity.
Trap House follows the children of elite DEA agents, kids forced to stay undercover so their families do not become targets of the dangerous people their parents hunt. When one boy’s father dies during a raid on a stash house, the family is left scrambling—especially since the DEA is practically useless when it comes to compensating the fallen. Cody, played by Jack Champion—also seen in Avatar 2—leads a tight crew of high schoolers. His father is Ray, Bautista’s character, and when the kids decide to help their friend, they choose the most explosive solution possible: rob a cartel trap house hidden in the quiet suburbs of El Paso, Texas. Before you can say Scooby Gang, these armed-for-action teenagers use the tactics and gear learned from their DEA parents to launch a non-lethal heist that somehow gets off the ground.
That move puts the cartel’s sibling commanders, Benito and Natalia—played by Tony Dalton and Kate del Castillo—on the hunt. Their mission is simple: identify the threat and erase it. What follows is a full-throttle collision of teen mischief and savage shootouts. Yes, the audience has to suspend disbelief until the cables snap. The movie wants to blaze its own trail, but it loses traction before crossing the finish line.
This tonal whiplash could have wrecked the entire operation, but Dowse keeps the vehicle moving, steering toward a respectable supply of thrills and kills. Part of me kept imagining the harder, meaner movie hiding underneath—a straight crime thriller with Bautista leading the charge, breaking heads and bones for 100 minutes. Instead, the film hands much of the spotlight to the kids, giving the story a different angle. That choice is admirable, but when the credits rolled, I was still thinking about the movie that might have been.
The film’s greatest weapon is Bautista. He could have played Ray as another cheese-filled action machine, but instead he keeps the character grounded, bruised, and real. Bautista delivers an honest, convincing performance as a single dad trying to raise his son while battling the worst of the worst every day. His restraint keeps the movie’s oversized theatrics from exploding off the rails. Then, when Ray finally understands what is happening, Bautista locks onto the target and sticks the landing. The movie also gives him several chances to unleash the animal, complete with some gnarly kills for fans waiting on that inevitable f-yeah moment. Always a plus.
The supporting cast holds the line, too. Bobby Cannavale plays Ray’s partner and friend, a familiar role, but he and Bautista generate strong chemistry that makes you want more of their two-man assault team. If the film had simply sent these two gunning for the bad guys, I would have been perfectly happy. It would have been more formulaic, sure—but I am absolutely a sucker for that kind of firepower.
Jack Champion gives Cody enough heart and grit to keep the story alive. He could have been the standard irritating teenage son, but Champion makes him sympathetic as he and his friends gamble everything on an absurd plan. Bautista and Champion also find some genuine father-and-son moments, and those quieter exchanges give the movie’s emotional side the boost it needs.
Cody and Denni, played well by Sophia Willis, get the most attention, while the rest of the crew—including Yvonne, played by Whitney Peak, and Kyle, played by Zaire Adams—remain frustratingly underdeveloped. We spend some time with them, but their backstories barely extend beyond the fact that their parents serve on the same DEA task force. The villains are just as thin. Tony Dalton and Kate del Castillo are supposed to command cartel-level menace, but Dalton mostly fills the frame without much bite. Castillo gets more to work with, yet neither villain truly dominates the battlefield.
Then there is Cody’s romance with Teresa, the new girl in town and at his school, played by Inde Navarrette. The subplot mostly exists to deliver a twist that I saw coming from miles away. It feels forced, but it never completely derails the mission. Navarrette gets to have some fun in the later stages, though the whole sequence leaves you wishing the filmmakers had pushed harder.
As promised, the movie delivers enough bloody mayhem to keep action fans in the fight. There are rousing firefights, a climax packed with cartel members meeting their fate, and enough blood spray to keep the ammunition belt moving. The action is quick and forgettable in places, but while the bullets are flying, Trap House remains entertaining. The trouble is the tonal gearshift: just as the action starts roaring, we are suddenly back in El Paso 90210. The tagline promises, “It isn’t a raid, it’s a reckoning.” By the end, we get the raid—but not the reckoning.
All in all, Trap House is ultimately held back by its unnecessary collision of teen angst and brutal cartel action. A few characters break through, but the development is scattered and far too rare. The movie scores some direct hits, then gets dragged down by a faltering narrative and a conclusion that leaves the door wide open. We are clearly being teased with the possibility of a Trap House 2, and while I have heard rumblings about the filmmakers wanting a franchise, I doubt that will ever happen after this film’s lack of success. That leaves us with a what-happens-next setup that feels more frustrating than thrilling. Maybe a follow-up could have fixed some of these problems. For now, we get Bautista doing Bautista things—which is never nothing. I just wanted less Goonies and a whole lot more Sicario.
VERDICT: 3 Out of 5 Stars
Trap House could have gone full throttle, but instead it never figures out what it wants to be. Dave Bautista continues to dominate both the action and drama departments, yet the suspension-of-disbelief plot and constant tonal shifts ultimately jam the gears.
