Locked Down has some memorable moments. Yet, overall, director Doug Limans romance/comedy about a couple’s attempt at a high-risk, high-stakes jewellery heist during the Coronavirus pandemic isn’t great.

Starring Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ben Kingsley, the most memorable scenes for me feature Kingsley and Ben Stiller. There’s also the scene that has my favourite line of dialogue in the whole movie: ‘Live wild or die, Linda.’ My love of this line has more to do with Ejiofor’s delivery of it, more than anything else.

As for what’s seriously wrong with Locked Down, it doesn’t help that I found the chemistry between Hathaway and Ejiofor lacking. This lack fed into their relationship feeling underdeveloped. It’s then no surprise that I didn’t buy the evolution of the characters, including the decisions they made.

To put it another way, both the film’s central relationship and the story needed more writing time. Because it had an overall silly and unbelievable quality, which I doubt was intentional. The issue isn’t the performances, but near enough all else, especially the story.

I can understand that Locked Down exists in part because of a desire to take advantage of a locked-down London. It’s therefore unfortunate that the thoughts running through my mind while watching the movie included:

‘I wonder if the actors regret saying yes to this script?‘

‘This kind of feels like a literal dream, but a bad one. A bad script for an actual dream that could have been very exciting.‘

‘How on earth did Harrods allow themselves to be used for this? That is assuming the Harrods scenes were shot in the famous luxury department store.‘

Should you watch this movie? I mean, if you’re extraordinarily curious, do. Otherwise, I say wait for a quality lockdown film. One that’s taking its sweet time to be developed and developed right.

Happy Film Loving,

G

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