Locked

Grade: B

Locked is a movie with a very small cast, that has a character trapped somewhere. It’s basically a two-hander, like Gravity and Fall – which, respectively, had people stranded in space or on the top of a 2,000 foot tower. Locked has a few other people in it, but it’s pretty much all Bill Skarsgård and Anthony Hopkins.

Skarsgård is one of the most versatile actors in the business. He played Nosferatu, Pennywise in the 2017/19 IT movies, and was a nice guy in the horror film Barbarian. In Locked, he successfully made me sympathize with this would-be car thief. His name is Eddie. He’s not a bad guy, just down on his luck at the moment, and resorting to some desperate measures. In a touch that I appreciated, he’s done some things, but has never killed anyone. He’s kind of a deadbeat dad – not necessarily by choice. The banter, rapport, and loving relationship with his young daughter is established early on. He wants to be there for her more. “I still love you, Daddy, even when you’re a farthead.” That’s one of the sweetest things I’ve heard.

He needs some money so he can get his van out of the shop and get back to his delivery job. Going around to see if any cars happen to be unlocked, he finds a nice one, in one of those generic pay-to-park lots. He gets in, the door closes behind him, and doesn’t open back up. The car’s owner is played by Hopkins, who speaks to Skarsgård through the phone inside. Skarsgård is trapped in there. There’s no cell signal, the windows are tinted and bulletproof, etc. Hopkins can make the car drive itself from wherever he is, and eventually does. He also messes with Skarsgård by playing around with the heat/AC, and blasting less-than-pleasurable music for hours. He can taze him. Skarsgård is in there for days – thirsty, starving, and suffering from a self-inflicted bullet wound in the leg (a ricochet from when he tried to shoot his way out). There’s a cruel irony when we see all the pouring rain surrounding the car and hitting the sunroof – just out of reach for Skarsgård, stuck in there, drinking his own fluids.

The two actors make the material work as well as it does. They are up to the task of the back-and-forth, and bring up compelling points. They, inevitably, talk about how a few people have too much money, and so many don’t have enough. Crime and Punishment is brought up, and not by the first person you’d think. The Hopkins character is terminally ill with prostate cancer. He’s had his car broken into several times, so he spent all this time and money rigging it up and leaving it unlocked in this public lot to teach someone a lesson in case there was a “next time.” You’d think an easier solution would be to leave it safe and securely locked in the gated lot of his apartment, but then I guess we wouldn’t have this hour and 35 minutes of Jigsaw-style torture.

We do eventually see Hopkins (not just hear him), as the third act ramps up to laughable camp. However, I am recommending Locked. I liked the tone and style of the camera work, particularly in the beginning scenes. The actors commit themselves to the roles, and handle the screenplay – which sometimes isn’t the greatest – well enough. It leads to an ending that reinforces what matters most, and gives Skarsgård’s Eddie a newfound appreciation for it. Maybe he won’t be such a farthead anymore.

Grade: B