Locked

Locked could have worked as an episode of a horror anthology series, but its premise proves too thin for a feature. Working from the same playbook as claustrophobic thrillers such as Phone Booth (2002) and Don’t Breathe (2016), screenwriter Michael Arlen Ross concocts a tense scenario where the desperate Eddie (Bill Skarsgård) breaks into a luxury SUV, only to discover its sadistic owner William (Anthony Hopkins) has sprung an elaborate trap designed to ensnare carjackers. With the petty thief caught inside for days of torture and taunting, the movie relies on the strength of its two leads. Skarsgård and Hopkins do their best with this material, but Ross’ screenplay spirals into a ham-fisted discussion centered around justice, generationalism, privilege, and the absence of courtesy in today’s society. Not even actors of their caliber can make this amateurish ideological debate sound convincing as written. 

An English-language remake of the 2019 Argentinian thriller 4×4, Locked establishes Eddie as a troubled man: he’s in debt with some shady mechanics; he’s separated from the mother of his child and behind on child support; he forgets to pick up his daughter at school; and he scours the streets for an angle, testing car door handles, hoping to loot an unlocked vehicle. Though Eddie seems like a deadbeat, the script borrows logic from the screenwriting book Save the Cat! when he stops to give water to a dog left in a car. He also has the approval of his daughter, who reassures him, “I still love you, even when you act like a fart-head.” These details signal that no matter how ill-behaved Eddie may be, he’s our hero deep down. 

After Eddie spots a slick-looking, million-dollar Dolus SUV in a parking lot, just waiting to be taken, he enters and quickly discovers the doors are—you guessed it—locked. He cannot escape, break the windows, or get a signal. The interior has been reinforced with metal and soundproofed. William calls the SUV’s phone, greeting Eddie with a morbidly chummy and “jolly good” tone, reminiscent of Hopkin’s performance in Hannibal (2001). “Such a naughty boy,” he tells Eddie, whom he proceeds to torture with starvation, electrified seats, and other hidden gizmos, with no hope of escape. Every eventuality has been anticipated, William brags. He explains that his SUV has been broken into six times before, and not once did the police investigate. A widower who’s dying of cancer, William has nothing left to lose in his pursuit of so-called justice, romanticizing the days of unlocked doors and people who prided themselves on their appearance and good behavior. 

While the well-read Eddie surprises William with his intelligence and street smarts, the captor remains unimpressed by the thief’s arguments about the socioeconomic divide and how laws “are made by rich people for rich people.” There’s lots of debate between them about how Eddie broke the social contract, along with a circular pattern where William threatens to do something terrible with the remote-controlled SUV, such as run over a street thug, prompting Eddie to repent and apologize. For Eddie, the whole experience equates to a Scared Straight program, albeit far more sadistic and with more urine drinking. And William’s purpose never proves more complicated than wanting to give a criminal “a taste of hell.” 

Director of Brightburn (2019) and Netflix’s Nightbooks (2021), David Yarovesky doesn’t limit himself to the interior space of the SUV, which might have been a bravura conceit reminiscent of the single-location Buried (2010). There’s no consistent aesthetic here, just a lot of flashy camerawork, hyperactive cutting, and larger-than-life performances. Cinematographer Michael Dallatorre’s frame goes inside and out of the vehicle, with editors Andrew Buckland and Peter Gvozdas alternating between zippy movements and the vehicle’s hidden cameras. It keeps the visuals varied but can’t make the story gripping from start to finish. The last third loses all cohesion once William takes Eddie for a joyride, and because the characters and narrative remain thin, the experience runs out of steam after about an hour.