Like any profit seeking company, movie production companies are trying to seize on the coronavirus lockdown while people are stuck in their homes. Because of the rushed production schedule, usually these efforts have mixed success because the script wasn’t thought all the way through. Locked Down’s problems all stem from conception to rushed production. If there were more time, there’s enough interesting kernels in here to tell a great story. Instead, what we get is sometimes entertaining, mostly boring and at times condescending and lacking in irony.
Even if the pandemic didn’t hit, Linda (Anne Hathaway) and Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) were not in a good place. The pair were in the early stages of a breakup after years together…but the pandemic locked them down. Now in a loveless existence, the pair are stuck together like pissed off roommates going through the motions but irritated at what their personal and professional lives have become. Fate has thrown them a lifeline though, as Linda’s company has entrusted her with a £3,000,000 diamond, which Paxton will be driving to the airport. All that pent up frustration makes the pair consider a swap to get the money, freeing them from all of their current prisons.
I can’t believe how many talented people made mistakes here. Doug Liman and Stephen Knight are the writer/director combo. Liman, the Swingers/Edge of Tomorrow/Jason Bourne guy, better serves the movie when the heist kicks in, too little too late. Stephen Knight can write claustrophobic play-like stories like Locke, or at least insane risky stories like Serenity. Locked Down feels like trying to cram a Liman story into a Knight script. The caper stuff is simple, a little exciting, and easily filmmable which probably helped, but it’s the least interesting and well developed part of the story. The best stuff are the little moments about how lives are different when lived remotely, like how to prepare and execute a lay off session remotely without seeming like a dick. Or finding one’s purpose when personal freedom is stripped away by a virus. Knight nails those little moments, but his movie needs to be about the Linda/Paxton relationship so the heist matters to people. The problem is, the movie’s stakes don’t warrant the need for a heist for the couple. What Knight should have led to is these two need an outlet, a purpose. Not freedom or money. And there are a million different ways to survive a 2 month period stuck in close quarters. Knight would have you believe that these last few days were so unbearable that the pair needed a heist to solve their problems, a tough sell that most people will roll their eyes at when you look at the pair’s living conditions. Also because there needs to be a heist element to Locked Down for Liman’s directing strengths to take over, we abandon those little touches, the best part of the movie, when the 2nd half plot kicks in.
Locked Down probably would work better on a stage, but with Broadway/The Globe closed, we’re stuck with an HBO Max version of the movie. I just wish someone had told Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The pair of great actors are giving play like performance in a movie. That means that they’re acting to make sure the balcony/back row can see what they’re doing, when they should be dialing it back. Arguments happen early and often with the couple; the thing is, both bring twitchy, showy performances to their debates which make the characters more unrealistic as time goes on. Hathaway has an iPhone dance montage that’s laugh out loud bad and doesn’t make any sense in the middle. And Ejiofor’s incessant commenting on the goings on betrays the frustration the character must be feeling by making him a high minded dick instead of a relatable put upon cast away. I hope this is just pandemic blips for the Oscar nominees, and maybe getting back out into the world for real will help their future performances.
I do applaud the idea of Locked Down. But I lament the execution. Years down the road, maybe split Locked down into its pieces: one quarantine heist. One two-hander about a strained relationship forced to interact together. Steven Soderbergh can direct the former. Richard Linklater the latter. Doug Liman can then work on Edge of Tomorrow: Quarantine edition where Hathaway and Ejiofor have to murder Corona Virus, a robot that’s locked down the planet. And Stephen Knight can have Ejiofor writing a computer program that dictates how insane Anne Hathaway acts so Ejiofor can come to terms with the fact that he wants to murder someone. Seriously guys, see Serenity sometime soon, it’s SOOOOOO insane it’s amazing.