Trap House (2025) – Bautista vs. Cartel vs. His Own Teen Kids

Trap House (2025), directed by Michael Dowse, is exactly the kind of solid Saturday-night action thriller I hoped for when I saw Dave Bautista’s name on the poster. Nothing groundbreaking, but I genuinely enjoyed it from start to finish. Good action, some heart, and a fresh twist that turns DEA agents’ own teenagers into the robbers. 7/10—fun, entertaining, rewatchable if you’re a Bautista fan.

The Plot: When Your Kids Use Your Own Playbook Against the Cartel

In El Paso, undercover DEA agent Ray (Dave Bautista) is deep in the war against a brutal cartel. His partner gets killed, Ray is still grieving his late wife, and his relationship with his young-adult son is basically ice-cold. Then the cartel starts getting robbed… by a crew of fearless teens using classified intel and DEA tactics.

Guess whose kids are leading the crew? Yep. Ray and his dead partner’s daughter decide to fight fire with fire and hit the cartel where it hurts. Good intentions, terrible execution, and suddenly the parents are hunting their own children before the cartel hunts them first.

What I Really Liked

• Dave Bautista is perfect as the tough-but-hurting dad/agent. You feel his pain and his pride.
• Nice balance between hard DEA action and real family drama—shows how these agents sacrifice everything, even time with their kids.
• The second half basically turns into a young-adult revenge/heist movie and I was totally here for it.
• Action scenes are clean, brutal, and satisfying (wish there were a couple more, though).
• Actually has heart: grieving families, broken homes, kids trying to fix things the only way they know how.

My One Main Complaint

The cartel itself and the whole drug-trafficking evil is super familiar. We’ve seen these exact bad guys in a hundred movies. Nothing new or scary about them. The real juice comes from the family/cat-and-mouse side, not the villains.

Ratings and Critical Reception

• IMDb: 5.3/10 (692 votes—so far pretty small sample)
• Rotten Tomatoes: 59 % critics (17 reviews) – no audience score yet

Early takes call it “predictable but fun.” That’s spot on.

Final Take: Bautista + Family Drama + Decent Action = Good Time

At 7/10, Trap House is exactly what it wants to be: an enjoyable R-rated action thriller with a little more heart than usual. If you like Bautista kicking ass, undercover cop stories, or just want something easy and entertaining with a fresh “kids vs. cartel vs. parents” spin—go for it. Not a masterpiece, but I smiled a lot and never felt bored.

What did you think of Trap House? Did the teen-heist twist work for you, or did you want more straight Bautista action? Drop your thoughts below!

And hit me with the next suggestion—I’m clearly in a Bautista / action-crime mood right now.

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