LOCKED DOWN

There's a keen screwball nature bubbling under the surface of the film's first act... when it isn't drowning in heavy-handed exposition. Even down to the opening title cards, one can hear the hustle and bustle of a city busy before hard cutting to empty, silent London streets. It is even more strange how unbalanced and overdone 'Locked Down' is when one considers the man behind it. Writer Steven Knight's body of work could only be described as wild (if not always consistently good), but he has cut his teeth on the bottle-episode format (the brilliant one-man-show that is 'Locke') and mashing up genres (the absolutely insane 'Serenity', which also stars Hathaway). It would seem that on a surface level, Knight would be the perfect man to tackle 'Locked Down', but despite all the parts appearing ready to click into place, the final result is just spectacularly boring. Similarly, Hathaway's casting, while spot-on for a free-spirit-turned-neurotic-chain-smoking-control-freak like Linda and a perfect foil to Paxton's eloquent white flag-waving, doesn't lend itself favourably to the final act. We've seen Hathaway have the time of her life stealing diamonds from fancy places in 'Ocean's 8', and the mind can't help but reminisce on that experience or even wish it was watching that film instead of 'Locked Down' at times.

'Locked Down' would actually be fun if it didn't try to continually remind us of the mundanities of the pandemic right as many are still living through them: glitching Zoom calls, the news constantly on in Linda and Paxton's flat, and a pile of hand sanitiser bottles on their kitchen counter are just a few moments that come to mind. There's no satire there, and in this permutation serves no other purpose than to instantly time stamp the film (the best time-capsules-as-films actually have something to say about that time rather than just present it without comment). At a point, you're shocked a character hasn't just straight out said, "2020, am I right?" It's a purely first world-look at an issue that some countries are still struggling with, some have been able to combat, and others are just wishing will go away. What's worse is that these moments that should come off feeling natural since, you know, everyone has been living through this pandemic together, instead are so overwritten that it borders on exposition from a bad soap. Look no further than five minutes into the film where an awkward plot reveal involving an extramarital affair comes off as if the cast is reading the script for the first time.

The final, most baffling aspect of this entire project, is despite the very clear distinction that this film is taking place during the pandemic, many of the characters in the final act (including Linda and Paxton) are incredibly lax with their wearing of masks in Harrods. The opportunity for humour in watching the characters try and work together without being able to read lips (and a great chance for these talented actors to flex) is lost and save for a running gag with Paxton's ID name, the heist feels as empty as the incredible department store Linda and Paxton run around in to pull off their plan.

Perhaps the most disappointing takeaway from 'Locked Down' is that there is a much better, much crazier, much funnier version of this film somewhere in here, but Liman, Hathaway and Ejiofor can't seem to find it for the life of them. Perhaps if they had found it, this project would really be able to reflect the craziness we all felt during our first lockdown, one that would match and justify the heist itself. I'm sure far more tasteless pandemic-themed films will cross our screens in the distant future, but 'Locked Down' is so bland that it's hard to imagine anyone will be able to tackle such a present and ongoing issue with any real grace for years to come.