Tina Kakadelis
The early aughts saw an oddly large number of heist and action-adventure films geared toward kids and teens. They include Catch That Kid, one of Kristen Stewart’s earliest films, and Big Fat Liar, the classic Amanda Bynes flick. Perhaps there’s a golden sheen around these films because they were a large part of my adolescence, but they felt like stepping stones to similar adult fare. To me, there’s a direct correlation between Catch That Kid and the Ocean’s franchise that cannot be ignored. Director Michael Dowse’s Trap House is an attempt to return to this era of teen mischief films, but a lot has changed in the intervening years that the film isn’t ready to grapple with.
Trap House takes place in El Paso, Texas, a city best known for being a border town that’s only separated from Mexico by a river. The audience is introduced to a team of DEA agents conducting a drug bust at a gas station that has ties with a Mexican cartel. Ray (Dave Bautista) is the leader of the strike and isn’t able to protect all of his team members. News of the loss of one of his agents filters down to the children of the DEA agents at school. Jesse (Blu del Barrio), child of the fallen agent, tells his group of friends that his family has to move because they can’t afford to stay in their house. Ray’s son, Cody (Jack Champion), along with friends Kyle (Zaire Adams), Yvonne (Whitney Peak), and Deni (Sophia Lillis), hatches a plan to rob from the cartel to help Jesse, using information Cody swipes from his father. As one can imagine, stealing from the cartel can’t possibly go well.
In teen heist and scam movies, the reason for the theft is usually Robin Hood-esque. Stealing from the rich in order to help those who can’t afford life. In Catch That Kid, the trio steals so they can help pay for one of their parents to have an experimental surgery that insurance won’t cover. From a bird’s eye view, Trap House has a similar reason for why the kids want the money. The DEA isn’t providing Jesse and his family with enough support after his dad’s passing. Jesse’s mom is sick and the DEA’s insurance won’t be covering them any longer. It makes complete sense that a group of teenagers would want to use the skills and information they’ve picked up from their parents to find a way to help their friend. The problem lies with the way Trap House portrays the people the kids are stealing from.
Trap House requires a certain suspension of disbelief. It’s extremely difficult to believe that a drug operation could be bested by four teenagers, no matter how many times their parents have brought them along to DEA sparring classes. That’s not an issue, however, when you consider the film’s younger audience. The problem is in Trap House’s portrayal of Mexico and cartel members. Every shot we see of Mexico is presented in that terrible yellow sheen that’s all too common as shorthand for filmmakers presenting the country in a negative light. The politics of the world Trap House is being released into are far thornier than the film would like us to believe. It paints with a broad brush, DEA = good, cartel = bad, but then asks the audience to go along with choices made by the parents that break the law. The film’s ending also inexplicably sets things up for a sequel in an uncomfortable way that doesn’t reckon with what it’s implying about the cycle of violence and the generations of families impacted. In 2025, we need a little more nuance in our action and heist movies.
It’s a shame there’s so much murkiness in Trap House that it’s not allowed to be the fun, teenage heist caper it could have been. The main foursome are an exciting combination of young actors who have already made their mark. The playful dialogue snaps back and forth in a laidback, realistic manner. Inde Navarrette plays the new girl in school who quickly catches Cody’s attention, and Navarrette is a name you’ll want to remember when Obsession comes out next year. All the young cast members play their parts exceptionally well, but because Trap House makes peculiar choices surrounding its vigilante teens, it struggles to find a place in the teenage heist film canon.
