Courtney Howard // Film Critic
LOCKED
Rated R, 1 hour and 35 minutes
Directed by: David Yarovesky
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins, Ashley Cartwright
A common thief is trapped in a luxury vehicle after breaking into it. LOCKED’s simple, catchy logline provides multiple avenues for its story to journey from there, yet the magic is in this two-hander’s strong character construction. Adapting from the kinetic Argentinean feature 4X4, director David Yarovesky and writer Michael Arlen Ross air their remake out a tad more, in addition to making this a claustrophobic, character-driven chamber piece heavily in the vein of Hitchcock. Though the third act pumps the brakes on the speeding vehicle, we play passenger to intellectual sparring by high-caliber actors and clever “what would you do?” scenarios that make this a thrill ride worth taking.
Eddie’s (Bill Skarsgård) life has hit a rough patch. He’s a bleached-blonde burn-out (think Pete Davidson with frosted tips) who’s having trouble making ends meet financially, which has caused irreparable damages leading to his divorce. He’s also having trouble fulfilling any basic obligations of fatherhood, like picking up his cute-as-a-button adolescent daughter Sarah (Ashley Cartwright) after school. The day on which we’re introduced to him and his travails is no exception as his van is stuck in the shop due to costly repairs. But through all life’s stresses, he’s got a heart of gold (best exemplified when he feeds a stranded dog through a car window).
When his last-ditch effort playing lotto scratchers for quick cash comes up fruitless, Eddie’s fate turns when he spots a luxury SUV in a parking lot tucked away from the dangerous city streets. The Rolls-Royce look-a-like “Dolus” (which means “trick” in Latin) is a shiny, black beacon of hope sitting under a flickering lamppost. Its tinted windows, reinforced suspension, quilted leather seating and luminous flat screen display conceal a secret: it’s a mouse trap set by William (Anthony Hopkins). He’s a cunning doctor whose life has been upended by violence, seeing his car broken into multiple times and his daughter murdered right in front of him. This vigilante is taking the law into his own hands, ruthlessly torturing our bedraggled anti-hero inside the car. However, William has met his match in Eddie, who challenges him every step of the way.
The 2019 film had a few interesting things going for it in its subtext that are tangibly missing in this iteration. The caged thief had a cricket companion inside the SUV and each time he’d speak with his insect buddy, you could feel it was the symbolic representation of his hope slipping away. Since that armor-plated car (there a fictional “Predator” model) was parked on a side street, we got more of a snapshot of the lousy city life, seeing sex workers turn tricks and extreme security measures enacted by the residents. There was also a nod to THE GREAT GATSBY, as the movie poster shellacked on the city wall was reminiscent of the fading eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, representing God judging society as a moral wasteland.
But for all of these losses, we gain a lot more. Yarovesky and Ross reinforce their vehicle with intelligent character design, not solely dealing in black and white, but coloring their ethics and morals with varying shades of gray. Eddie is well-meaning and tenderhearted, but he does stupid things that get him in trouble. William’s motivations are self-righteous and wrong, but spawned from understandable grief, rage and anxiety. Thematic talking points about wealth and crime are thought-provoking and germane to real world class system arguments dealing with the wealthy making the rules that keep “the poors” down, causing them to revolt against the system. The haves and have-nots are juxtaposed in a few Tony Scott-ish montage bumpers.
The filmmakers also heighten the dark comedy, from William breaking Eddie with a yodeling playlist blasted for hours on end to the extreme temperatures Eddie endures. There are two street pursuits, one of which adds gripping stakes to the action. Aesthetically, Yarovesky, cinematographer Michael Dallatorre and production designer Grant Armstrong utilize every inch of the car to connote the stifling emotions inside it, using tight close-ups, swirling camera pans and gritty security footage style split screens. Plus, they double down on the gross-out factor, as Eddie drinks his urine and breaks a toenail.
That said, Yarovesky and Ross have trouble figuring out a satiating ending. Though it’s indeed less preachy, obtuse and verbose than its predecessor, it still spins its wheels bringing the bloody hijinks to a close. It gets more than a little tiresome seeing Skarsgård beaten to a pulp. While it’s nice to see Hopkins not literally phoning in the entirety of his performance, the filmmakers experience some problems working out William and Eddie’s inevitable face-off, as well as what to do with the duo once they’re together inside the moving death trap. Hopkins’ sadistic chuckles pervade over what should be sharper dialogue. The filmmakers also fail to pay off a few ideas they set up in the first act, which leads us to spiral into questions about how this could’ve ended if these other roads presented were taken.
Grade: B-
LOCKED opens in theaters on March 21.
