Director: David Yarovesky
Writer: Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat, Michael Arlen Ross
Stars: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins, Ashley Cartwright
Synopsis: A thief breaking into a luxury SUV realizes that he has slipped into a sophisticated game of psychological horror.
This summer will likely be the summer of the gritty thriller genre. Novocaine has been out already exceeding box office expectations. Black Bag brings a twist on the spy thriller genre game with two hot leads and a hotter director. Now, David Yarovesky’s Locked releases in cinemas with much anticipation, and for good reason. It is one “Highway to Hell,” a rollercoaster ride of a movie that delivers everything it sets out to achieve.
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Last year, I watched Bill Skarsgård in Boy Kills World and I wasn’t impressed. I felt that he needed a better film to place him as one of the upcoming movie stars of a turbulent, unpredictable period in the film industry, where nothing makes sense anymore, and the ebb and tide can crush a promising young actor in a minute. Then they released Nosferatu, but it was more of a Lily-Rose Depp star vehicle than Skarsgård’s, and even as he received praise, he still needed something worthy of putting his face on the screen.
This is where Locked comes into play. Some of the most enjoyable 95 minutes of my life, a film purely made for the big screen and one, that if someone is a thrill seeker or a midnight moviegoer like me, then this is the film to buy a ticket for. The claustrophobic survival thriller is an ongoing horror ride, one where the moment our protagonist enters the demon car -yes, that’s what I call it- nothing slows down. The action-packed flick goes on from there to draw in lovers of Skarsgård but also those on the hunt for the action movie that would keep them pressed to their seats, unaware of the passing time.
Formalities first: Eddie is a down-on-his-luck petty thief, a former delinquent with a baby face and family baggage. To pay a debt, Eddie breaks into a luxury SUV, thinking it’s his lucky day, but his labyrinth of pain starts when he hears the car owner’s chilling voice enthusiastically explaining Eddie’s dire situation as a hostage of the Death Proof-like automobile. The fun begins, and it feels like a sophisticated Jigsaw trap between Eddie and William (Anthony Hopkins), and with Skarsgård’s star power and Hopkins’s chilling performance, it can’t get any better. It’s “Eat the Poor” as if the rich are given the chance to strike back after a series of now predictable films about the working class rising to flip down the social order and consume the rich. Now the rich get their payback time and it’s so fun to watch.
Events unfold quickly without losing Eddie’s sense of humanity, whom audiences slowly warm up to as the harsh cases of his imprisonment become more and more emblematic of the sinister nature of William’s faux moral system. William exacts his punishments like a scary Biblical figure, his utter dismissal of Eddie’s vulnerability seems baffling, but as the film progresses it becomes clearer where his disturbing moral code stems from, and it’s a fun cat-and-mouse game between two wonderful actors.
Locked would have never worked out without the stellar performance from both leads, Skarsgård and the veteran Hopkins who mostly appears as a cold, detached, psychopathic voice. But the credit goes more to Skarsgård, who is at his best here, flipping from anxiety, bitterness, and rage, all the way to despair. Playing a character out of his comfort zone -which is primarily nonexistent at that point- he bares his beautiful face, but uses the physicality of a down-on-his-luck man, creating an illusion of fractured beauty, a man beaten down by life and its cruelty left its marks on him. He basically acts with himself, a one-man show for the masses, and Bill’s girlies are in for a treat because even with blood pouring down his face and some mild gore (and gross out) moments, he looks hotter than ever.
Locked doesn’t weigh itself down by asking questions or giving answers. It doesn’t set a firm line between victim and perpetrator and in that lies its magic. The magic of that obscure action thriller that one discovers randomly on a trip to the movie theater, oblivious to the buzz of film tweeters and movie recommendation channels. Go watch it on a big screen where it belongs.
