LOCKED, the American re-make of Argentina’s 4X4, is an interesting premise beautifully acted, skillfully directed, but ultimately stymied by a script that mires itself in a repetitive second act that doesn’t so much expand as aggravate. The premise, a sad sack of a petty criminal gets trapped inside a luxury SUV tricked out as a booby trap of justice, has possibilities as the story sorts through the difference between law and justice, the failings of a society that blames the poor for their destitution, and the lack of security that keeps us all on edge. One wishes that the film were as compelling as its performances. Alas, it is not.
Bill Skarsgård is our sad sack, Eddie, whose Friday is about to go from bad to worse to hellish. He’s short the money he needs to pay for his delivery van’s new alternator, he’s neglected to pick up us little girl (doughty Ashley Carteright) from school again, and his ex has just torn him a new one for it. Cornered by circumstances, Eddie resorts to fast food, lottery scratchers, and petty crime. None of it helps. The wallet he steals has chump change in it. The car he cases has a barking dog that Eddie befriends by giving him the last of his water before he leaves without having ripped off the vehicle.
Visually, we’re in good hands. The screen is an explosion of rhythm and hopelessness with copacetically edited shots of the mean streets where Eddie lives and where he keeps trying car doors to find the one that will open and give up enough loot to get his van back from the mechanics who are even meaner than the streets. He believes that fate has smiled on him when he slips into that ci-mentioned SUV, a Dolus with quilted leather interior and a dashboard full of state-of-the-art gadgets left tantalizingly in a back ally parking lot. Disappointed that there was nothing in the vehicle except a pair of sunglasses that may or may not be expensive, he discovers fate’s true plan for him when the doors stubbornly remain locked. Several montages of increasingly frantic failed escape attempts, including the use of a tire iron and a handgun, ensue and only succeed in wounding Eddie in two places. As if that weren’t irritating enough, the SUV’s computer screen springs to life with a caller ID of “Answer Me.” When Eddie finally does as his blood pours out of a leg wound, he hears the dulcet tones of a Brit who identifies himself as William (Anthony Hopkins), the SUV’s owner whose had six previous vehicular break-ins, and who has decided that the seventh would bypass a justice system that has failed him.
Ah, the plummy tones that Mr. Hopkins employs as he explains Eddie’s dilemma to him in gleefully jovial tones. The orientation is punctuated with examples of the electrified seats, an aggressive climate control, and a playlist that includes enthusiastic yodeling, all managed by remote control as William monitors Eddy with the SUV’s six cameras. Their dialogue, rife with vulgarity, recriminations, and a discourse on the rights and responsibilities of the individual versus the state offer few surprises or insights, but Hopkins, with only his voice, and Skarsgård with a physical, feral ferocity coupled with a counter-intuitive vulnerability and intelligence, buoy the prolonged dialectic that stretches into several days. And then things finally take off. Literally, though the subsequent remote drive through urban streets presents its own problems with internal logic and audience credulity. Even in a section of town that the police have all but abandoned why are the authorities unconcerned about an SUV careening around town at 90 mph?
Think of the action, now that it’s finally arrived, as the practical examples of the philosophical musings that has preceded it, and as such a clever juxtaposition when it comes to showing the downside of putting political theory into action. It certainly jolts the audience with imagery and suspense as kinetic as the wild car ride Eddie endures as a helpless passenger. If only it had arrived earlier in the running time, which is the film’s biggest failing. That glaring, increasingly dull plot desert with Eddie being trapped in a stationary car as William reveals the depths of his psychosis. Yes, examining two people of opposing worldviews pushed to extremes by circumstances beyond their control is a situtation ripe with possibilities, but an idea without proper execution is a crime.
There are some nice touches. The Dolus’ logo is a figure of justice with a balance in one hand and a sword in the other. Eddie wears a pink hoodie that separates him from the more sinister elements of the film, and Skarsgård has such soulfulness as he stares out of the SUV’s tinted windows at the parking lot’s changing billboard that taunts and condemns him with every new advertisment. He also gives Eddie an intrinsic humanity that provides an emotional immediacy for the audience, and renders tragically prophetic Eddie’s back tattoo, the one that opines that anger is a gift, heretofore a pose and a shield for his too tender heart. Plus, no one has ever guzzled water or demolished a cookie with such fervent desperation.
LOCKED tried very hard, just as hard as Eddie did to get out of that SUV. Points for attempting something meaningful, but not enough to save the flick. Bill Skarsgård notwithstanding.
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