What is Guy Pearce doing in Lockout? More to the point, what was I doing there? Alas, it was another pre-credits walkout from me. Life's too short to spend it watching the credits of poorly made pulp.
If you've seen Escape from New York or Escape from L.A., imagine them set in space and you've seen Lockout, albeit with Kurt Russell doing his best rather than with Guy Pearce taking the money and putting most of his effort into not smiling about the ratio of $$$ earned to effort exerted.
It's the 'near future' and the world's governments have decided the best way to deal with criminals is to spend millions (billions???) of dollars flying them thousands of miles to a high security, but lightly staffed, American prison in space whereupon they are put into stasis until their sentence is served and they are flown home. Quite why 1. stasis is a suitable punishment, bearing in mind it essentially pauses life without aging or loss of years, and 2. a costly space prison is a better place for comatose prisoners rather than a cheap, subterranean bunker is beyond me and directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger never bother to explain. One is also left to wonder whether Lockout needed two directors just so the blame could be shared.
Unbelievably, the prisoners are released from stasis, overthrow the staff, seize control of the prison and do very bad things. Rather than nuke it and start again, a rescue mission is launched because the President's daughter is visiting it on a fact-finding mission. Really? And who do they choose to rescue her? Naturally, it's Guy Pearce's Snow, who's been wrongly convicted of very bad things, who is called upon to beat hundreds of violent criminals and rescue Emilie (Maggie Grace) in return for a full pardon. Yeah, right! So, the plot is, ah, flawed but what about the acting? Pearce gives a performance that makes one wonder how he possibly enthralled in L.A. Confidential and Memento. Prometheus cannot come quickly enough for him to redeem himself, although the virals show early promise. Grace is about as convincing as my front door although Peter Stormare and Vincent Regan are competent, if not memorable as we've come to expect.
The standout performance, however, is from Joseph Gilgun, who is proving to be a versatile and most enjoyable actor to watch. Having served his time in Coronation Street and Emmerdale (at 257 episodes it sounds like his first prison sentence!) he delighted in Shane Meadow's This is England series and quickly banished the memory of Nathan when his character, Rudy, filled the gap in series three of the fabulous Misfits. Yes, in Lockout he's on pantomime villain duties but goodness knows it's a welcome rock to cling to in the swamp.
Unfortunately, it's a swamp that is all consuming.
Another film review from The Squiss. For more reviews from The Squiss subscribe to my blog at www.thesquiss.co.uk
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