Locked Down (2021)

Is it too soon? I'm writing this on January 15, 2021, the day after the release of one of the first 2020 pandemic themed films, Locked Down, from the director of The Bourne Identity, and I'm wondering if I really want to see a movie about the pandemic. This is the story of a couple, who are breaking up, but are locked down together during COVID-19, who plan a heist at Herod's. Locked Down explores all the little and big issues of middle class folks living through this unique time, from zoom meetings, to isolation, to job insecurity, to mask wearing, to interacting with others while isolating, to being forced to reexamine everything we thought we knew about day to day dreariness.

The film has taken a bit of a beating from critics and it has it's flaws for sure but there is something for me that made it somewhat compelling. It was less about the pandemic cliches, which here often feel quite cliched (again perhaps too soon), and more about the interactions between Hathaway and Ejiofor, who have a wonderful chemistry together, and manage a sort of Woody Allen (but in a good way) relationship-on-the-verge-of-collapse-or-connection magic. I found myself quite captivated by their back and forths. It took a little time to get going, the first bit is a slog, but as their connection really developed and it started to make sense, it became more and more watchable.

To be clear, the whole heist plot is a small part of the movie, and perhaps it would have been a better film if it had developed that part more, allowing the action thriller subplot to support better the relationship drama this film wants to be. What is there has a few moments that are fun, but it rather fleeting and fairly unrealistic. But as I said the strength here is in their portrait of a relationship and it manages okay there. 

But perhaps watching a movie about the pandemic, during the pandemic is just more than most people want right now. Perhaps this will play better in a few year when so much of this is just a memory.

 

Locked Down

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dule Hill, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Ben Kingsley, Ben Stiller, Lucy Boynton,  Jazmyn Simon, Claes Bang

Director: Doug Limon

Writer: Steven Knight