Locked (2025)

 

This is basically a B movie with an A-list, two-hander cast.

You wouldn’t even need a whole ride in an elevator to pitch the concept.

A Covid Compliance officer appears in the end credits. So maybe the idea recommended itself at a time when the industry was looking for this kind of restricted set-up.

It was shot in Vancouver and so, looking ahead, might be the sort of production attracting 100% tariffs in the near future. Though on my one visit to that city in 2010, I did come across some peculiar patterns of street-level indigency and social decay there which are certainly plot-relevant in Locked.

Everything about it is perfectly adequate. The writing is decent and it avoids the risk of both obvious absurdities (OK, maybe that nigh speed ride through the city) and of trivialising the social and ethical issues it necessarily evokes. Dostoevsky is name-checked.

The two leads add some notes of genuine excellence.