“High concept” used to be industry terminology for movies whose premise was precise, succinct and intriguing, but these days it’s used interchangeably as shorthand to describe ones that just sound lazy, instead of creative. Take “Locked” for a timely example: It’s about a thief who finds himself locked inside the car he’s trying to burglarize.
Remaking the 2019 Argentinian film “4×4,” director David Yaroevsky (“Brightburn”) translates that film’s ticking-clock tension into a simmering pressure-cooker character study that’s been superficially overlaid with timely political rhetoric. But seldom has the phrase “mileage may vary” applied more than it does to this film, even with two relative heavyweights — Bill Skarsgård and Anthony Hopkins — in its two main roles, as Yaroevsky fulfills his marching orders dutifully, but with uneven success.
Skarsgård plays Eddie Barrish, a ne’er-do-well driver who’s about $500 shy of the cost of the part that will get his delivery van out of local mechanic Karl’s (Michael Eklund) garage. Until then unable to pick up his daughter Sarah (Ashley Cartwright) from school — a show of responsibility he hopes will facilitate a reconciliation with his wife Amy (Gabrielle Walsh) — Eddie desperately scrounges for cash, eventually deciding to loot the nearest car that’s unlocked. He eventually finds a black SUV and hops inside to pilfer whatever he can find in its glove compartment.
Unfortunately, when he tries to exit the vehicle, he discovers that it’s locked, and quite impossible to escape. He scratches his arm while trying to pry off a door panel, then accidentally shoots himself in the leg when a bullet from his gun ricochets off the glass. While he’s sitting there, bleeding and exasperated, a call comes through the vehicle from William (Hopkins), its owner. William cheerfully explains that Eddie’s is the seventh break-in his car has experienced, and he fully intends to set an example with the young perpetrator to achieve a version of justice he believes that the legal system has abdicated.
Eddie eventually passes out from blood loss, but when he reawakens in the car with his wounds cleaned and bandaged, he realizes that William’s designs run deeper and more sinister than to even the scales for a petty crime. Armed with little more than his wits, Eddie tries to plan an escape, quickly realizing that he’s not just facing arrest or some twisted form of corporal punishment, but the very real possibility that he will die from William’s retribution.
Where “4×4” more aggressively embraced the criminal misbehavior of its protagonist, writer Michael Arlen Ross’ screenplay for “Locked” immediately tries to create a more complex, sympathetic portrait of Eddie. (For example, even though he’s trying to break into cars, he feeds water to a dog through the window of one of them he can’t enter.) Such a character is an overfamiliar cinematic staple: a well-meaning, blue-collar guy who just made some bad life decisions, with whom the audience should side because of his palpably sincere love for his daughter.
Yet to rally sympathy behind someone who by all accounts is a repeat screw-up and (at least) a petty thief, Ross creates in William a character who quickly demonstrates that he embodies everything he seems to believe proletariat moviegoers stand against. Though he provides a backstory — involving a crime that ended with the death of a family member — to explain his thirst for vengeance, William is otherwise a wealthy one-percenter who not only custom designed the car and its many bells and whistles, but harps on social permissiveness and entitlement to validate his point of view. It’s a choice, like those in a number of films right now, that may play unevenly in a cultural climate where the haves and have-nots feel especially more divided than ever. Yet isolated in “Locked,” it feels like superficial fuel to set these characters apart, much less to legitimize the gauntlet of torture and torment to which William subjects Eddie.
As Eddie, Skarsgård doesn’t carry the automatic likability to get the audience on board with his plight; perhaps it’s because he’s played creeps and weirdos so effectively in the past, but he fails to make us believe the character’s insistence that he truly cares about his family, and is just a day away from turning everything around for the better. Meanwhile, as undeniably gifted as Hopkins is, his performance as William marks the umpteenth time he’s been called upon to elevate material that’s really far beneath his skill level. He only partially succeeds — despite that sorrowful backstory, William’s perspective is never terribly relatable, and he can’t quite find the logic in the character’s mean-spirited persistence.
After showing promise with “Brightburn,” Yaroevsky directs this with all of the passion that he has — well, to keep getting work — but he navigates the cabin of William’s car with a consistent and clear sense of geography. (Thankfully, he abandons florid showmanship after initially exploring the car’s interior with a dizzying, circular tracking shot.) But again, Ross’ script doesn’t quite ground William’s elaborate revenge plot, making the movie feel more like a stunt (think “Devil” or “Buried”) than an even vaguely realistic scenario. Rather than high concept, it ultimately feels like “a concept,” and one that never marries its setup to a motivation or meaning that gives it a whole lot of dramatic intensity, much less depth. “Locked” is not without limited charms, but it ultimately fails to bridge the gap between putting audiences in the car with Eddie, and actually wanting to make them go for the ride.
Source link
