Summary
- The premise of Trap mirrors a real-life case called Operation Flagship, in which the government disguised itself as a sports network to arrest 101 fugitives.
- M. Night Shyamalan took inspiration from the fraudulent sting and created a suspenseful thriller based on the absurdity of true events.
- Cooper’s situation in Trap parallels the fears surrounding Operation Flagship, blurring the line between fiction and reality.
M. Night Shyamalan is known for his films with incredible premises and big twists, such as The sixth sense And Sign. Catch seems to be another in his long line of imaginative scenarios.
The plot revolves around Cooper (Josh Hartnett), a family man with a wife and two kids, who takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert by her favorite pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan, the director’s daughter). Cooper is doing what good dads do when he notices there’s an increased police presence at the venue and learns from a friendly merchandise seller that the whole concert is a trap to catch the Butcher, a serial killer who has been dismembering people for years. This is alarming news for Cooper, because He is the butcher.
Over the next 90 minutes, we watch Cooper wriggle out of every avenue the government has to catch him, each one more ridiculous than the last. But the most shocking thing is that Catch is not unthinkable. In fact, Shyamalan’s film is based on a true story… sort of. Let’s take a look at the loose inspiration for the film Catch.
Traps Inspiration … somehow
Catch
- Release date
- 2 August 2024
- Pour
- Josh Hartnett, Hayley Mills, Marnie McPhail, Vanessa Smythe, Saleka Shyamalan, Malik Jubal, Jonathan Langdon, Peter D’Souza, Ty Pravong, Kaitlyn Dallan
The events of Catch are inspired by a real-life case called Operation Flagship. In 1985, the US Marshals’ Fugitive Investigative Strike Team (FIST) launched a plan to capture a group of fugitives in Washington DC. They created a fake sports network, Flagship International Sports Television, a rift from FIST As part of the alleged launch of the network, letters were sent to the last known addresses of over 3,000 wanted men informing them that they had won two free tickets to an upcoming match. between the Washington Redskins (now Washington Commanders) and the Cincinnati Bengals for a chance to win tickets to the Super Bowl. Back then, the Redskins were a coveted ticket and people were excited to win admission to a game.
The so-called winners showed up for a brunch at the Washington Convention Center on the morning of the game to pick up their tickets. They were surrounded by U.S. Marshals, all playing the role of maintenance personnel, cheerleaders, mascots, ushers and other staff pretending to celebrate with the refugees.. They even checked the men to make sure they were really fugitives. “A ‘confirmed winner’ was someone who was wanted; a ‘double winner’ was a dangerous person, someone who had committed aggravated assault, murder or robbery,” said Toby Roche, then Chief Deputy U.S. Marshall for the District of Columbia, in a 2016 NFL Films documentary about the operation.
The federal officers then took small groups of up to 14 people to separate ballrooms. When they got there, the Special Operation Group stormed the hall to arrest them as soon as the MC said they were under arrest. The ruse was so good that even after the arrest, some people were still confused and asked: “Can we still go to the game?” The operation resulted in 101 arrests that day.
However, for the US Marshals, there were several things that would give the station away if the fugitives were looking. In addition to the fake sports channel, the name of the station’s president, I. Michael Detnaw, was an anagram for “I am wanted.” In addition, the new station’s CEO was called Markus Cran – Cran is “narc” spelled backwards. So the feds were having fun with the operation, even though they were planning to arrest a lot of criminals.
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Shyamalan had Operation Flagship in mind
While Catch Although it is not the story of Operation Flagship, it does have certain parallels – and these parallels are no coincidence. Although Shyamalan’s film does not directly refer to Operation Flagship, he remembered the operation when he was designing his film.“This idea came to me, I remember as a kid this event in the ’80s where the police and the FBI did a sting operation at a public event,” Shyamalan told Dexerto.
So Shyamalan took the idea of a public event where fugitives are caught and inspired his story. “It was just the spirit of the idea of being caught in the absurdity,” Shyamalan told the BBC. “I thought it would be super funny because if you look at the footage of (Operation Flagship), it’s hilarious.”
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“(The authorities) used the absurdity against (the fugitives) because they let their guard down, which I thought was quite brilliant.said Shyamalan. “That just stuck with me, and I guess when Saleka and I were thinking about a film at a concert, I was wondering why this person couldn’t come out and how could I keep them there?”
Cooper’s decision to take his daughter to her idol’s concert in Catch is as natural to this character as winning Redskins tickets is to those taken down in Operation Flagship. So, in the end, Trap is not quite as unrealistic as it first seems.
