My streaming gem: why you should watch Lockout
Lockout – a schlocky, daft and quite exceptionally loud 2012 sci-fi action flick from the trashier end of Luc Besson’s mind palace – is the kind of film that went out of fashion around the time Bruce Willis hung up, and then hopefully burned, the filthy white vest that made him a household name.
The year is 2079. Guy Pearce plays Snow, a moody, wise-quipping, hardsmoking CIA tough guy who’s sent to infiltrate an in-orbit penal colony after the hitherto on-ice prisoners – wouldn’t you know it? – escape, overrun the facility and take the president’s daughter hostage. Why was she there, you ask? Oh, because of reasons. Important ones. As is generally also the way with such films, Snow has been framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and the key to clearing his name lies in the addled mind of one of these emancipated inmates. Also: because of reasons. None of them matter. Quiet now.
If all this sounds slightly familiar, it’s because Lockout does, admittedly, contain as many artistic innovations as a Michael Ball Christmas album. Basically Demolition Man mulched with huge dollops of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. The premise certainly sounded familiar to Carpenter: he sued Lockout’s production company for plagiarism in 2015. Tellingly, he won.
So Lockout isn’t remotely, even legally, original. It’s also bookended by action sequences containing some of the most inexplicably dismal CGI since The Rock became a giant, clammy scorpion. Why then, given all of this opprobrium, am I recommending it? Well, because with the right sort of hat on – ideally one of those plastic Thirst Aid ones with a can of beer wedged on each side – Lockout is a silly, unabashed hoot from start to finish. Just don’t think about it too much.
Central to the whole thing is Pearce’s Snow, pitched just short enough of repellently pugnacious to be endearingly wise-cracking company. He punches, he shoots, he quips, he smokes. That’s his entire personality, there, written almost literally on the back of a fag packet. He’s a puddle-deep hero of a bygone cinematic age. Pearce, and the production as a whole, appear fully aware of the preposterously atavistic nature both of Snow’s character, and the film they’re making – “No one smokes any more!” an exasperated Lennie James shouts at one point. Lockout never descends into tiresome
irony in the same way the sequels to its most blatant tonal influences – Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop – did, but there is a pleasing undercurrent that, if there is a joke here, both the movie and the audience are in on the same one.
Your standard lone-hero actioner is only ever as good as its villain, of course, and this is where Lockout unleashes its piece-de-resistance. Most of the prisoners are cookie-cutter punchsponges, there to expire in ways of varying levels of explosive dismemberment. The ostensible Big Bad is Vincent Regan’s Glaswegian hardcase Alex. But it’s his little brother, Hydell, played by the always sensational Joe Gilgun, who not only steals any scene he’s in, but also walks away with the entire film, its jewellery, and anything else that isn’t nailed down. Gilgun plays the tattooed, silver-toothed, mohawked psychopath with a splenetic mixture of menace and childish mischief that’s never anything less than a joy. To say he makes the most of the material isn’t quite doing it justice – Gilgun manages to make a ballgown out of a snotty hanky, and seems to have enormous fun doing it.
The two-star reviews levelled upon the film aren’t entirely unwarranted. Maggie Grace, as the first daughter, Emilie, is woefully underserved by the no-frills script, existing merely as foil for Snow’s pithy jibes. There’s a general whiff of old-school misogyny, too – perhaps understandable given the movie’s prison setting, but one the film would have been just as enjoyable without. The whole thing ends with an almighty squelch rather than a bang. And there isn’t really a single surprise in it. It’s action by the numbers, and Lockout counts those numbers on its fingers.
And yet, somehow, it works. It’s shameless, dribble-chinned retro fun. In not so much overcoming its shortcomings as simply ignoring them, Lockout succeeds in being all it ever wants to be: an action film that will whisk you away for a lean 94 minutes of Guy Pearce punching people in the middle of the face and Joe Gilgun gnawing on the doorframes.
If a worthy, black-and-white drama with subtitles is a nutritious superfood salad, Lockout is a giant sloppy burger served alongside a turquoise alcopop with a sparkler in it. You wouldn’t want it every day, because you’d die, but not before you became very stupid. But as a treat, every now and then, as part of a balanced diet? Dig in. Every now and then it’s good to do something fun that does you absolutely no good whatsoever. Like a big, thick dog with its foot in its mouth, Lockout just wants to entertain you. Isn’t that enough sometimes?
Lockout is available on Netflix in the US and UK
relationship can fall apart.
Thug Yoda
Many of Insecure’s best bits come from the recurring characters. (See Due North, the parody show-in-a-show that depicts a love story between a slave, played by Regina Hall, and her owner, played by Scott Foley). But Thug Yoda, who topped a list of every man in the show, captured hearts with only a few appearances. He is Issa’s neighbour – and happens to be a gang member. While he counsels Lawrence over a birthday disaster, he mentions he is about to watch the “Bare Bears” with his young daughter. When she corrects him – “It’s Care Bears, Daddy” – Thug Yoda bends down and sweetly corrects her. “Uh-uh-uh-uh; we don’t use no Cwords, sweetheart. This a Blood house.”
I’ve been saving
When Issa finds herself broke and staying on her ex-fling’s couch, she reaches out to Kelli for financial advice.
It turns out the rank of credit tiers go: “Excellent, good, poor, bad and then Issa,” but she reveals she has been putting money away with an “I’ve been saving” dance. In a heartwarming moment of solidarity, Kelli joins in like a good friend should and hypes Issa with appropriately placed “ayys”. But the moment is cut savagely short when, after seeing the balance sheet, Kelli’s supportive “ayys” turn into unimpressed “nuh-uhs”.
When Kelli got tased
Issa and friends head to Beychella for Tiffany’s pre-baby blowout. “Beyoncé or bust” turns to the latter really quickly when they get disastrously high – Tiffany not included (although she later admits, tearfully, that she took a tiny bite of an edible). Just before Queen Bey makes it to the stage, a belligerent Kelli starts a fight and gets them kicked out. With her voided wristband still fresh on the ground, she makes a run for the gate, gets tased by security, drops cold and wets herself, dramatically shouting: “Remember me different!” In a time when the tense relationship between African Americans and law enforcement is in focus, what could have been a traumatic moment is one that makes you cackle out loud instead.
Season four of Insecure starts on 23 June at 2am (repeated at 9pm) on Sky Comedy
film I made but it never quite worked out, and then he died. We had a plan quite recently for a film in which he’d play someone with Parkinson’s. A great shame, as he was up for it. He wanted to work. He loved to be performing.
Ian was the consummate supporting actor. He never wanted to lead, but he was so good he’d somehow end up becoming the lead anyway. His humanity and depth spilt over into the whole story.
Both Ian’s roles for me were as mentors, and he was a man you’d very readily learn from. I remember being in tears watching him shoot the scene in which he shows Tarzan how to use a razor – he turned the words into something comic and magical and extremely moving. He taught me so much, particularly about working with other actors, which is with enormous discretion and patience.
Ian’s great innate wisdom and honesty gave him immediate access to the truth of any character. That gentle understanding was behind his magnetism, I think. Someone told me that Laurence Olivier once came up to him and said: “How do you do it?” Ian had these amazing little inflections, incidental bits of performance genius. It’s striking an actor like Olivier, the opposite of Ian in style, was so impressed.
They were both such powerful actors in their own ways – not that
Ian, too, couldn’t be steely and terrifying when he wished. I thought the RSC’s current artistic director, Gregory Doran, described him perfectly when he said Ian “was entirely original. Entirely a one-off. He had a simmering cool, a compressed volcanic sense of ferocity, of danger, a pressure-cooker actor, a rare and magnificent talent.”
I think Ian and I were drawn to one another because neither of us liked to speak much. I was completely at ease with him; we never had a problem with one another. He was such a modest and unshowy man. His sense of character was always impeccable and we simply understood one another and trusted each other entirely. We’d communicate on set with our hands and eyes, but he immediately knew what I wanted, which I haven’t known before or since with an actor.
We saw each other socially a lot, and had a particularly memorable time at a film festival in Nimes in 2007 where our two films together were shown. In London, we’d go to restaurants and drink champagne, which he loved, and called “shampoo”.
He was an adorable, adorable man and could be terribly funny. He and his wife and son came for Christmas one year – we both had weddings around the same time. Sophie and he were married for 20 years and she nursed him for 12 of those and gave him a good and happy life.
They always had fun together. It was always such a laugh being with them, even if, later on, you could only see that in his sparkling eyes. It’s so sad such a beautiful spirit has gone.As told to Catherine Shoard
He worked so hard every single night, there was never one show he was in a lower gear
as a classic.
Jane Horrocks, voiced Babs
I can’t actually remember whether I was simply offered the role of Babs or if I auditioned for it. But what I do remember is the whole cast getting together for a read-through, which was unusual for an animation. I’d worked with Julia Sawalha on Ab Faband knew Timothy Spall really well. It felt like being with old friends. Benjamin Whitrow,
who played the RAF rooster Fowler, had a really loud voice and nearly blasted our ears off. He was absolutely perfect for the role! You could sense when we were all together that the film was going to be something special.
Nick as a director was specific about what he wanted and I really enjoyed working with him. Both he and Pete Lord had a strong overall vision, not only for the animation but for what the characters sounded like. I’d received drawings of Babs and knew she was a larger lady – or should I say larger chicken? We had one recording with the whole cast together, then I had about four or five sessions on my own.
It’s such a beautifully written and clever film without being overly sentimental and cheesy. You’re really rooting for the characters: you want them to win. My agent and I used to laugh about it marking the start of my “fowl period” as I went on to play a number of chickens in other animations.
I wasn’t able to go to the premiere but I was in New York when it came out, so I went to see it in the cinema. The audience didn’t seem to get the irony and there wasn’t much laughter. Back in the UK, I went to see it in the cinema again. Of course, that was a different cup of tea altogether. The audience responded exactly as I hoped they would and roared with laughter.
Babs is very similar to Bubble in Ab Fab. I think I do the dumb blonde role quite well – it comes naturally! It’s only been after years of people quoting Babs’s lines back at me that I’ve realised how good they are. I think my favourite is: “I don’t want to be a pie, I don’t like gravy!” When people hear my voice they “recognise” me. Some time ago, I went into my local dry cleaner’s and the woman working there said: “Can I ask you whether you happen to be the voice of a plasticine chicken?”
• Chicken Run 2 is in production.