By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins and Ashley Cartwright
Directed by David Yarovesky
Written by Michael Arlen Ross
The Avenue
The creators of the confinement thriller LOCKED have a very canny setting on their hands, one that allows for entrapment in a confined space but that is also mobile, allowing for changes of scene in the second half. This allows for more variables to come into play, and more opportunities for different individual suspense setpieces, than often occur in this subgenre. (It should be noted that the actual creators of this scenario were writer/director Mariano Cohn and co-scripter Gastón Duprat of the 2019 Italian film 4×4, on which LOCKED is based. And that “Producer Sam Raimi,” as he’s credited in the marketing, was one of five producers, two co-producers, 35 executive producers and five co-executive producers listed in the end credits.)
It also helps that LOCKED has as its lead Bill Skarsgård, just the right live-wire actor for this situation. He plays Eddie Barrish, who’s down on his luck, can’t afford to get the van he needs for his job fixed and, most importantly, neglects to pick up Sarah (Ashley Cartwright), his daughter by his now ex-wife, after school. Eddie’s in a desperate situation, as emphasized by an overabundance of quick cutaway shots by director David Yarovesky in the early going. These become more meaningful as they capture potential theft targets from whom Eddie could grab the cash he needs, before his search for a car to break into leads him to a high-end “Dolus” SUV parked in a small lot.
Once he slips inside to rob it, however, this proves to be smarter than the average smart car. The doors can’t be opened or unlocked, the windows can’t be broken and Eddie’s attempts to bust out only lead him to injure himself. Then a call comes through from the Dolus’ owner, William, voiced by Anthony Hopkins–perhaps the most unexpected big name voicing this kind of unseen tormentor since J.K. Simmons spoke for the glory hole in Rebekah McKendry’s GLORIOUS. William is an extremely wealthy man with plenty of money to spend to trick out his vehicle, with the intention of punishing the kind of lowlifes who have robbed him before. Now he has Eddie right where he wants him, and the Dolus has plenty of special features he can use to torture his captive. When one of those proves to be an especially unendurable piece of music, it demonstrates that he and the filmmakers have a jaunty sense of black humor too.
The lengthy section in which Eddie realizes just how bad a predicament he’s in, his attempts to escape are thwarted and William teases him remotely, is the best part of LOCKED. Even though Eddie has some bad deeds in his past and gets himself in trouble trying to commit another one, Skarsgård and scriptwriter Michael Arlen Ross (TURISTAS) maintain sympathy for him, and have us both hopeful and curious to see how he’ll work his way out of this situation. Hopkins is clearly having fun as his sardonic long-distance captor, while maintaining the gravity to sell William’s eventual speechifying about right and wrong, privilege and morality and so forth. LOCKED runs out of gas somewhat in the midsection when it starts tackling the Big Themes underpinning Eddie and William’s circumstances, though Yarovesky and cinematographer Michael Dallatorre contribute a number of flourishes to keep things visually interesting. Watch the rearview mirror just as Eddie begins trying to kick his way out of the Dolus; later, in a nighttime scene, streetlights project rainwater running down the sunroof and windows onto Eddie’s body so that it looks like sweat–possibly a homage to the “tears” scene in IN COLD BLOOD.
Eventually, the story takes a turn that allows for more action and jeopardy, along with the inevitable reckoning between Eddie and William. This gets the tension back up and humming again, accelerated here and throughout by Tim Williams’ edgy, percussive score. Editors Andrew Buckland and Peter Gvozdas also warrant mention for the tight pacing that assures that LOCKED, even though it occasionally threatens to stall out, always stays in gear.
