The Trap isn't quite a classic, but it's much better than its current 6.6 rating would indicate. It's a genre movie that hits all the right notes.
The cast does some surprisingly good work. Richard Widmark could be stilted and awkward at times, but in this movie he's energetic and convincing, with no tendency to over-act. Lee J Cobb makes a good villain, and puts a nice spin on his lines but stops short of hamming it up.
But the real star is the outdoor location. Almost the entire movie is shot in actual desert terrain. You can see the characters sweat, and after a while you start to feel the gritty sand on your skin.
Much of the movie is a cat-and-mouse chase. It's handled well - both sides act logically, nobody does anything conspicuously contrived. The end result depends as much on character as on circumstance.
The Trap reminded me - in a good way - of several other movies. It starts with the desert setting and lone protagonist of Bad Day at Black Rock. It shifts into the sweaty verbal sparring of 3:10 to Yuma. The ending reminded me of a more recent crime film, but I won't mention the name so as not to give anything away. Overall, there's also a strong feeling of 1950s westerns - if they'd done it with horses instead of cars, The Trap could have been a western.
The Trap is maybe a bit more generic than some of those movies, but it still deserves to be better-known. It's tense without being annoying, and it has just enough drama to support the action.
I had to double-check the credits to convince myself that Elmore Leonard didn't have anything to do with the script. However, I found that co-writer Richard Allan Simmons did work, much later, on the excellent suspense movie Juggernaut.
Apart from any other virtues, The Trap is unusual as practically the only serious movie directed by Norman Panama, better known for comedies like The Facts of Life, the Court Jester or even The Maltese Bippy. His work was always above-average, and The Trap proves he had more range than we might give him credit for.
If you're a fan 1950s crime movies, or of Richard Widmark, you'll be pleasantly surprised by The Trap.
