M. Night Shyamalan is no stranger to high-concept thrillers. His latest film, Traptakes Silence of the Lambs.-An inspiring approach to an unexpected place: a powerful concert by pop star Lady Raven (played by the director’s daughter Silica). Cooper (Josh Hartnett) is a seemingly normal suburban dad who takes his daughter to see her favorite artist. Chatting with the venue dealer, he discovers that the show is actually a trap: the FBI has a plan to capture a serial killer named “The Butcher” after learning he will be in attendance. But, as revealed in the trailer, Cooper is Butcher and find a way to escape.
Although the plot may sound strange, it is partially based on a true story. Shyamalan shared this. Trap Inspired by real life Operation Flagship. “I heard about it when I was a kid and I thought it was absolutely ridiculous, it actually happened,” the filmmaker said. BBC News. “That was something that was in my head when it happened.”
“[The authorities] used the absurdity against them because they let their guard down, which I thought was pretty brilliant,” he added to the outlet. “So it just stuck with me, and I think when Silica and I were thinking about a movie at a concert. I thought, why can’t this person get out, and how can I put him in there?”
A December 1985 sting operation, organized by the United States Marshals and the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, tricked more than 100 wanted fugitives into going to the Washington Convention Center under the guise of the Washington Redskins (now Washington). Got free tickets. Commanders) game against the Cincinnati Bengals, plus a chance to win tickets to the 1986 Super Bowl. It was said to be part of a special event celebrating the launch of a new DC sports TV network called Flagship International Sports Television Inc. (an acronym for the US Marshals Service’s Fugitive Investigation Strike Team). . To collect their tickets, the “winners” were asked to come to the brunch a few hours before the game.
On arrival, Fugitive Divided into small groups and taken to “party rooms”. Along with snacks and posters that read “Come Party!” Marshals and police officers stand as event staff, with female officers hugging guests dressed as cheerleaders and checking weapons. The men were also given balloons, sorted by color. Violent criminals received red balloons.
Louie McKinney, Chief of Enforcement Operations for the US Marshals; Pretended to be an emceeGiving a speech to the attendees before receiving their prize. As McKinney says he has a “big surprise,” marshals enter the room to arrest the criminals, repeating the same process with each group. It became one of the most successful fugitive captures in American history.
“It was hilarious. The cops were literally cheerleaders and mascots,” Shyamalan said Empire Magazine In July “And [the criminals] All were caught. It was very funny and funny.”
Instead of using a popular football game (at the time of Operation Flagship, Redskins tickets were a Especially hot items), Shyamalan chose to set the trap in a concert with the scope of a Taylor Swift Eras tour show. “I directed an entire concert,” said the filmmaker. Empire. “And it wasn’t just something in the background. It’s just as important. There’s no drama concert going on. I love the idea of a cinema as windows within windows. One of the reasons people come to see a movie in a movie theater. It’s that there’s a really real concert that you can’t see anywhere but this movie.
Retired federal agent Tobias Roche, who was part of Operation Flagship, fact-checked British GQ How precisely Shyamalan’s film was thought out. i TrapThe venue has a SWAT team waiting outside, as well as visible police inside, who question concertgoers. Roche argued that the officers should have been more stealthy. He clarified that Operation Flagship was planned to avoid any kind of suspicion and divert the attention of the criminals which is why it was successful. “We were worried that something [the fugitives] “They know each other probably from being incarcerated together or involved in criminal activities together,” Roche said.
In the film, a chatty vendor gives the scheme. Roche said GQ That in this type of operation, everyone would have to remain silent on his plan of action. He recalled that a lawyer representing a local company that had exclusive rights to Redskins games came to the convention center, saying that – unknown to him – the fake – broadcasting company Flagship International Sports Television. The inaugural program was illegal. The man was taken aside and told what was actually going on. He kept it a secret. “He was really nice about it,” Roche said. “He wound up watching the whole sting with us from the control room.” But if the lawyers had blown their cover, the operation would have stopped.
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