Pandemic-set rom-com leaves plenty to be desired
Locked Down (M, 118 mins) Directed by Doug Liman Reviewed by James Croot ★★1⁄2
This should have been the perfect match of writer, director and conceit. Helmer Doug Liman’s Go and scribe Stephen Knight’s Locke are a pair of the best ‘‘essentially real-time’’ action movies of the past 25 years – two innovative, audacious flicks filled with memorable moments. So if any duo could take on filming something with verve and style in the middle of a pandemic, it’s these guys.
Unfortunately, Locked Down is definitely not the cinematic outing you might have hoped for from CVs that include The Bourne Identity, Mr and Mrs Smith, Peaky Blinders and Eastern Promises (to be fair, it was actually made for screening on the streaming service HBO Max in the United States).
Instead, we’re offered up a tale of two halves – a Richard Curtis-esque rom-com that then rather noisily segues into a strange heist movie set in Harrods which ends up feeling like a giant ad for the department store.
That part at least shakes the story out of a growing torpor, as the fitfully funny antics of Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s bickering, barely civil couple raging against each other and their confinement starts to shift levels of annoyance, from mildly irritating to seriously grating.
Yes, despite a similar initial scenario, Malcolm & Marie this is not. Passions rarely get roused, casual clothing abounds and the design aesthetic is Westminster clutter rather than Carmel chic.
However, as you’d expect, there will be plenty of revelations, remonstrations and recriminations before the credits roll. That’s because, when we first meet them, Paxton (Ejiofor) and Linda’s (Hathaway) decade-long relationship appears irrevocably on the rocks.
Lockdown is the only thing keeping them together, the pair trapped in place, as Paxton puts it, ‘‘with the things we’ve said’’.
‘‘You’ve evolved, he’s mutated,’’ Paxton’s American-based halfbrother’s wife Maria (Jazmyn Simon) observes, while speaking to Linda over Zoom.
It’s true that while she has risen to become the chief executive of a London fashion company, he’s only been able to get jobs as a driver, thanks to a moment of madness a decade ago.
Currently furloughed, he’s stuck in a self-loathing spiral and contemplating selling his one true love – his motorbike. For Linda’s part, she’s started smoking cigarettes again and been given the unenviable task of sacking her entire events team due to costcutting.
Worse still, she’s having to put up with Paxton’s increasingly gloomily depressive outlook and insistence on regularly spouting poetry to the entire street.
Just when it’s all about to get too much though, an opportunity to escape their prison – perhaps permanently – presents itself when their respective employments unexpectedly cross paths to create a tempting, lucrative night’s work for both of them.
If they can only find a way to put their animosity aside and work together – one more time.
Like the celebrity cameos that litter Liman’s movie (for every scene-stealing Sir Ben Kingsley, there’s a wasted Mindy Kaling, Ben Stiller or Stephen Merchant), Locked Down only sporadically succeeds in providing consistent entertainment.
While impressing with what was achieved during what must have been a manic, restrictive 18-day shoot, one can’t help feeling a little more time should have been spent in the editing suite.
The film is at least 15-minutes too long and could have done without scenes involving Ejiofor discovering drug dealers looking for poppies in his garden, Hathaway wigging out to Adam and the Ants and an indulgent stroll through Harrods’ food hall.