Lockout – a schlocky, daft and quite exceptionally loud 2012 sci-fi action flick from the trashier end of Luc Besson’s mind palace – is the kind of film that went out of fashion around the time Bruce Willis hung up, and then hopefully burned, the filthy white vest that made him a household name.
The year is 2079. Guy Pearce plays Snow, a moody, wise-quipping, hard-smoking CIA tough guy who’s sent to infiltrate an in-orbit penal colony after the hitherto on-ice prisoners – wouldn’t you know it? – escape, overrun the facility and take the president’s daughter hostage. Why was she there, you ask? Oh, because of reasons. Important ones. As is generally also the way with such films, Snow has been framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and the key to clearing his name lies in the addled mind of one of these emancipated inmates. Also: because of reasons. None of them matter. Quiet now.
If all this sounds slightly familiar, it’s because Lockout does, admittedly, contain as many artistic innovations as a Michael Ball Christmas album. Basically Demolition Man mulched with huge dollops of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. The premise certainly sounded familiar to Carpenter: he sued Lockout’s production company for plagiarism in 2015. Tellingly, he won.
So Lockout isn’t remotely, even legally, original. It’s also bookended by action sequences containing some of the most inexplicably dismal CGI since The Rock became a giant, clammy scorpion. Why then, given all of this opprobrium, am I recommending it? Well, because with the right sort of hat on – ideally one of those plastic Thirst Aid ones with a can of beer wedged on each side – Lockout is a silly, unabashed hoot from start to finish. Just don’t think about it too much.
Central to the whole thing is Pearce’s Snow, pitched just short enough of repellently pugnacious to be endearingly wise-cracking company. He punches, he shoots, he quips, he smokes. That’s his entire personality, there, written almost literally on the back of a fag packet. He’s a puddle-deep hero of a bygone cinematic age. Pearce, and the production as a whole, appear fully aware of the preposterously atavistic nature both of Snow’s character, and the film they’re making – “No one smokes any more!” an exasperated Lennie James shouts at one point. Lockout never descends into tiresome irony in the same way the sequels to its most blatant tonal influences – Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop – did, but there is a pleasing undercurrent that, if there is a joke here, both the movie and the audience are in on the same one.
Your standard lone-hero actioner is only ever as good as its villain, of course, and this is where Lockout unleashes its piece-de-resistance. Most of the prisoners are cookie-cutter punch-sponges, there to expire in ways of varying levels of explosive dismemberment. The ostensible Big Bad is Vincent Regan’s Glaswegian hardcase Alex. But it’s his little brother, Hydell, played by the always sensational Joe Gilgun, who not only steals any scene he’s in, but also walks away with the entire film, its jewellery, and anything else that isn’t nailed down. Gilgun plays the tattooed, silver-toothed, mohawked psychopath with a splenetic mixture of menace and childish mischief that’s never anything less than a joy. To say he makes the most of the material isn’t quite doing it justice – Gilgun manages to make a ballgown out of a snotty hanky, and seems to have enormous fun doing it.
The two-star reviews levelled upon the film aren’t entirely unwarranted. Maggie Grace, as the first daughter, Emilie, is woefully underserved by the no-frills script, existing merely as foil for Snow’s pithy jibes. There’s a general whiff of old-school misogyny, too – perhaps understandable given the movie’s prison setting, but one the film would have been just as enjoyable without. The whole thing ends with an almighty squelch rather than a bang. And there isn’t really a single surprise in it. It’s action by the numbers, and Lockout counts those numbers on its fingers.
And yet, somehow, it works. It’s shameless, dribble-chinned retro fun. In not so much overcoming its shortcomings as simply ignoring them, Lockout succeeds in being all it ever wants to be: an action film that will whisk you away for a lean 94 minutes of Guy Pearce punching people in the middle of the face and Joe Gilgun gnawing on the doorframes.
If a worthy, black-and-white drama with subtitles is a nutritious superfood salad, Lockout is a giant sloppy burger served alongside a turquoise alcopop with a sparkler in it. You wouldn’t want it every day, because you’d die, but not before you became very stupid. But as a treat, every now and then, as part of a balanced diet? Dig in. Every now and then it’s good to do something fun that does you absolutely no good whatsoever. Like a big, thick dog with its foot in its mouth, Lockout just wants to entertain you. Isn’t that enough sometimes?
Lockout is available on Netflix in the US and UK
