By: debbie lynn elias
A non-stop adrenalin rush from start to finish, LOCKOUT is the film that action junkies – especially those who love those 80’s action flicks – have begged for. Proving that good things come to those who wait, LOCKOUT is a very good thing. With glorious touchstones to fave films of days gone by, you quickly find your mind jumping from Alien to Die Hard to Tango & Cash to Lethal Weapon to Daylight to Mission Impossible to Space Cowboys to Armageddon to Deep Impact to Fifth Element and even Star Trek and Star Wars and The X Files, you will find yourself, as I did, in homage heaven the entire time. A love letter to action greats of decades past, co-writers/directors Stephen Saint-Leger and James Mather have filled a void in the movie timeline.
Sometime in the future, America sees its first “public” space station up and running. MS-ONE is a floating prison designed to house 500 of the most heinous of criminals on Earth who are now shuttled into space to MS-ONE and placed into stasis for the duration of their sentencing. Theoretically, each should be able to awake from stasis at any time with no ill effects, but the President’s humanitarian minded daughter, Emilie, isn’t buying it and heads up to the station to see for herself first hand what the situation. Well, timing is everything and Emilie’s couldn’t be worse as with her arrival, ALL the prisoners are awakened from stasis leading to a violent mutiny of deranged killers with the prison staff, Emilie and her team being taken hostage.
So what’s a President to do when his daughter is taken hostage? Luckily for him – and Emilie – highly trained Special Agent Snow has just been set up and framed for a crime he didn’t commit (selling secrets to the enemy). Pleading innocence, Snow’s story falls on deaf ears and thanks to having pissed off people in some high ranking places, he is ordered to be taken to MS-ONE. On learning of Snow’s fate, the President sees the solution to his problem. There’s no one better than Snow. Send him in to save Emilie.
As Snow, Guy Pearce has never been better (and never looked hotter or hunkier). We’ve never seen a Guy Pearce like this before – self-deprecating, wry, dry, witty humor that just soars and is downright laugh-out-loud funny. With impeccable timing when it comes to sarcasm, Pearce flawlessly knocks out one-liners – bam, bam, bam! And watching his facial expressions with every “joke” is just priceless. Very Bruce Willis a la John McClane. With wry sarcasm being a relatively new element for Pearce (although he showed an adroitness for snarkily timed delivery in The Count of Monte Cristo), he downplays his mastery of the words, attributing it to a wonderful script. However, “Some [jokes] I needed to adjust a little bit to make them work for me, which I do on any film anyway, I find. If something doesn’t come out of your mouth right, you’ve got to acknowledge the fact that you’re trying to deliver an honest performance. If it doesn’t come out of your mouth correctly, then it’s not going to work. . .I didn’t want it to be just a device or an aspect of the film. I needed it to be honest within the character. I needed to find somebody who was naturally like that, had reached a point in his life. I think that’s how I viewed it, that it was a guy who had done all this kind of stuff many times before. He’s sick of being beaten up. He’s sick of leading this kind of life and probably sick of being misogynistic. It was nice to work with Maggie [Grace], for example, who has such a mature level about her and was able to put [Snow] in his place when she could. He’s a bit of a smart aleck and hard to put in his place. I wanted it to feel like an honest character. I didn’t want to go ‘Oh, okay. It’s one of those movies. This is what they do. They deliver the sassy one line.’”
Also a new aspect of Pearce in LOCKOUT is his bulked up physique. A one time competition body builder at age 16, to prepare for the physicality of Snow and all the stunt and wire work, Pearace “went back to the gym. I used to work out in the gym a lot when I was younger. . .[T]he gym is quite familiar and I know what I’m doing there. It was really about taking lots of protein and buffing up as much as I could, which stopped the day we finished shooting. For a number of reasons, and obviously for the look of the character, I think it was important that he looked like a serious action hero, even though he has this slightly irreverent sense of humor about the whole thing and feels a bit old and a bit afraid of heights. But it was good for me because it was a physical role. It was good to feel strong and feel like I was in shape, even though I kept injuring myself every week as well. It became a bit of a joke between me and the crew. ‘Oh, what’s he done this time?’”
Maggie Grace surprised me on so many levels. As Emilie, she developed a nice verbal sparring and repartee with Pearce’s Snow while adding stunt level physicality and wire work to her resume, something of which she is quite proud. ” Guy [Pearce] and I both arrived in Serbia a little bit early to get some wire work in and a little bit of combat training. It’s always nice to prepare for extra just in case something comes up. But the wire work was my favorite. I sent a video home to my parents the first day. Patrick Cauderlier is our incredible stuntman. He choreographed everything and taught us all the wire and he was kind enough to edit a little video together of me beating up the big Serbian stuntmen. So it was fun. It was a very physical experience.” And while Grace never quite equals the superb sarcastic timing of Pearce, appearing to be “one step behind” only adds to the character.
Grace enthusiastically admits her draw to the project “was the humor. That’s how I like my action movies served up. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you are looking for a message oriented film, this wouldn’t be it. It’s unabashed and unapologetically a fun ride. It’s a sci-fi adventure, but it’s littered with these sharp one liners and this kind of throwback archetype of a male lead who’s sarcastic and has some edge. You don’t know whether to smack him or kiss him or what to do.”
Supporting cast Peter Stormare and Lennie James are delightful to watch as CIA directors, Langral and Shaw, respectively. Both walk a fine line that give a sense through the entire film that neither is what they appear to be. Stormare is delicious as he exudes an almost Cold War Soviet air while James gives Shaw great affability creating a wonderful good cop-bad cop debate.
For Stormare, Langral is a dream role. “It’s a nice part. It was a beautiful script to get in your hands. Sometimes scripts are a little bit all over the place. . .When I read the script, it was like [exec producer Luc Besson] almost flirting a little bit with the movies of the past. He always gives the characters some room. . . I think this is a little bit of old filmmaking for me where you build a film with characters. You just don’t have one guy running around. Of course, Guy does a lot of running around and following here and there. But, at the same time, there is a place for me and Lennie [James] and also for the criminals up there. We get to know them a little bit and I think it would have looked very different if this would have been an entirely American production. The script would not have looked the same. . .It’s like an old Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler. . .It’s good old filmmaking for me and it was just a beautiful script. The part for me was nice because it was like wow, ‘He’s eluding me all the time. What is he up to? Is he really a bad guy or a good guy? What side is he on?’ You never find out, which is kind of cool.”
Truly exceptional is Vince Regan as mutiny leader Alex, bringing a softness and kindness to Alex that makes him almost admirable; ery delicate and subtle nuance that speaks volumes. Joseph Gilgun, who annoyed me in Harry Brown, annoys me here as well. Too over-the-top as Alex’s insane brother Hydell, the performance was so repetitive to the point of being ad nauseam, serving only to take one out of the moment of the film. A more restrained Hydell with less screen time would have served the film better. A very poignant performance comes from Tim Plester who, as Snow’s partner and friend Mace, makes your heart ache and in a very special shot, will bring tears to your eyes in a very “Spock” and “Kirk” moment.
Written and directed by Saint-Leger and Mather, while futuristic, this particular future is so close at hand that it could become reality within a few decades, which only adds to the excitement and thrill. There is nothing “fantastical”. It rings of truth and reality that puts you in the front seat of a roller coaster as you ride the excitement the entire movie. Clearly, action is the watchword of the day here, but the story itself touches on social and political issues and humanity – questions that have long been discussed in scientific and medical circles.
Stormare has nothing but praise for LOCKOUT and the freedom given by Executive Producer Luc Besson to directors Saint-Leger and Mather in order to return to good old-fashioned filmmaking. “There’s an old saying when they did movies in the good old days. You have to allow the audience to be part of the script, to write the script. Give the audience 60% and they’re going to fill in 40%. If you shove it down the throats, they’re just going to feel full and then want to throw up. But, if they’re part of the writing, they’re going to remember the movie and each person is going to have different opinions about the movie. That is like the old fairytale, the old way of telling a movie, which I like, and some directors do that in Hollywood still. Some directors are daring, but we see, in my opinion, too much of boom, crash, bang, things blowing up, falling from the sky or tumbling around and you get bored because you can’t [be a part of it]. If you’re denied to use your fantasy, like I love to fantasize still, as I did as a little boy. If I see a movie, I want to fantasize about what it’s all about. [LOCKOUT] invites the audience. It doesn’t kick the audience out. It says to the audience, ‘Come, be part of this journey.’”
Production values are high with a futuristic exterior and gritty reality of interiors. Romek Delmata’s set design, which is so Aliens/Star Trek/Star Wars, is not only functional but also adds visual texture and emotional confusion for the characters. James Mather, who also serves as cinematographer, excels with the various minimalistic stylings, particularly with lighting, using point lights and color as reference points. And then a stunning contrasted back on Earth sequence that is undoubtedly the money shot of the movie – a gorgeous panoramic twinkling skyline that’s clean, clear and sharp.
Lock and load! Don’t get locked out of LOCKOUT. And yes….I want my sequel now.
Snow – Guy Pearce
Emilie – Maggie Grace
Langral – Peter Stormare
Shaw – Lennie James
Alex – Vince Regan
Mace – Tim Plester
Written and Directed by Stephen Saint-Leger and James Mather.
