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With: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins, Ashley Cartwright, Michael Eklund, Navid Charkhi, Sofia Tesema
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Written by: Michael Arlen Ross, based on a screenplay by Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat
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Directed by: David Yarovesky
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MPAA Rating: R for strong violent content/bloody images, language throughout, and brief drug use
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Running Time: 95
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Date: 03/21/2025
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Guy Trap
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
A compact, tense movie with only five speaking parts, David Yarovesky's effective thriller Locked taps just a teensy bit into current cultural divides and social anxiety, and makes the most of its cat-and-mouse game.
Eddie (Bill Skarsgård) drives a delivery van for a living, but his van is in the shop and he can't afford to get it out. Worse, he has been unable to pick up his young daughter, Sarah (Ashley Cartwright), after school. Desperate, and out of options, he begins to look for things to steal in unlocked cars. One, an expensive-looking SUV, seems like a golden opportunity.
He slips inside, finds nothing other than a pair of sunglasses, and tries to get out. But the doors are locked. And the windows are unbreakable. And the windows are tinted, and no one can see him. And it's soundproof and no one can hear his screams for help. The car phone rings. He hears the voice of William (Anthony Hopkins), who has set this trap to teach the would-be thief a lesson. Eddie is about to begin a fight for his very survival.
A remake of a 2019 Argentinian movie called 4x4, Locked doesn't waste any time getting started. But it also establishes a strong sense of place, depicting an extreme level of human struggle and squalor, trash on the streets, graffiti, unhoused people, etc. There's an air of desperation, and the dialogue reflects differing opinions of how things got that way and who is to blame.
Star Bill Skarsgård — a gifted physical performer — cuts quite a figure in this landscape, tall and wiry, and clad in a bright pink hoodie, as if to suggest he hasn't quite lost his heart. Once inside the car it seems as if he's in constant motion, keeping us on our toes the whole time. Anthony Hopkins can play an elegant psychopath in his sleep, but he still gets the job done here in style. (We mostly hear his voice; he appears in the flesh late in the movie.)
Directed by Yarovesky (Brightburn, Nightbooks), Locked establishes a snappy pace and sticks with it, which helps to blow past the many logistical questions the movie ignores, most of which have to do with how Eddie stays alive and alert for so long, and other, untried possible methods of escaping. These things aside, it's a thriller so gripping that you'll definitely want to buckle up.
Paramount has released only a bare-bones DVD edition of this film. There are optional English subtitles. Worth a look!
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