Lockout hits UK cinemas today and stars Guy Pearce as Snow, a former government agent agent who is framed for a crime that he didn’t commit. When convicted, he’s sent to MS-1, a maximum security prison which is in orbit between Earth and the moon. While doing his best to avoid capture and then ultimately to prove his innocence, a riot ensures on MS-1 during an inspection by the president’s daughter (Maggie Grace) and there’s only one man who can save the day! You guess it, Guy Pearce to the rescue!
Lockout comes from the mind of Luc Besson who we’ve come to expect great things from and Lockout most definitely doesn’t disappoint. James Mather and Stephen St. Leger co-direct the film adding different elements to what we see on screen as James is far more cinematographer based with Stephen focused much more around the performance and general look of the film. It’s completely bonkers (but brilliant) from start to finish but every beat and sarcastic line delivered by Guy Pearce is better than the last. If you’ve seen the trailer for Lockout, it’s very much like that for the entire film. Lennie James, Peter Stormare, Jacky Ido, Tim Plester, Mark Tankersley and Solenne Hatte also star with Joseph Gilgun and Vincent Regan playing the leaders of the prison rioters on the space station. The dialogue between then is brilliant as they both have very different ways of leading the revolt.
Lockout is a relatively low budget movie where sets were recycled to keep costs down while being shot in Serbia but the film doesn’t suffer from this lack of money in any way, in fact, until I read the production notes afterwards, I had no idea it was only shot for $30m. I’ve never seen Pearce in a role like this before and after watching him in this, I hope that it’s one that he pursues to do again.
Lockout is silly but brilliant throughout and has become my favourite film of the year! Go and see it and let me know what you think in the comments below.
[Rating:4/5]
