Locked (2025) – Open Up

Released: 21st March
Seen: 30th May

A kind of story that we just don’t get enough of in cinema nowadays is “Person confined in a single space we almost never leave” Buried is a pretty great example of this kind of film, a film that takes place entirely in the confines of a coffin with someone buried alive inside it. It’s a deceptively simple idea but works really well in practice. It’s also remarkably cheap, the biggest expense being the lead actor you put in the single location and if done well it can be truly spectacular. There are a lot of challenges that come with making a film about one character and a voice on the phone in a small isolated location, but it’s such a simple and effective setup that I’m always looking for more films with that basic scenario to see what they can do. Well, now we have a new one in the form of Locked and it has got some great elements but it also doesn’t seem to know what to do with all of them.

Locked introduces us to Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgård), a down-on-his-luck loser who can’t even scrape up 500 bucks to get his van repaired. Without his van, Eddie can’t pick up his daughter from school, which is the only real contact he can have with her since he and his partner split up, it also means he can’t go to work as a delivery driver and earn any money to get his van repaired so Eddie finds himself hitting rock bottom and tries to figure out a way to get the money. With not many options to choose from, Eddie decides to break into a seemingly abandoned SUV so he can take a few things, sell them and get things back on track. Once he breaks in, however, he soon learns that the car has been specially designed to trap him inside it, surrounded by bulletproof glass and soundproofing so intense that he can literally scream at the top of his lungs with someone right by the car and not be heard. It’s a dire situation for Eddie, only made worse when the car phone rings and he starts having a conversation with William (Anthony Hopkins), the owner of the vehicle, who wants to teach this petty thief a brutal lesson.

In terms of concepts, Locked is kind of brilliant. For around 85-95% of the runtime, the main character is trapped in the car and we do not leave for any reason. There are no sudden cutaways to show us what anyone else is doing, no flashbacks to give us a brief reprieve from the central setting. The second Eddie climbs into the car, that’s it. We’re not leaving those leather seats until Eddie does, and the fact that Locked manages to keep this as visually interesting as it does feels like some kind of minor miracle. It knows just how to play up each little moment, making Eddie feel completely trapped even when we know he’s in the middle of a busy neighbourhood. There’s a total commitment to the bit that is only really broken when things need to ramp up and the car is moved, but even then we only really go outside the car to look at the car while it seemingly drives on its own. Now, sadly, it is in those moments where the car moves that some of the power of the film starts to drop, but it’s still filmed in a way that manages to make us feel just as stuck as Eddie.

It also helps that Eddie is played by Bill Skarsgård, who is giving an absolutely brilliant performance. Sure, he technically has Anthony Hopkins’ voice as a scene partner, which will help anyone give a good performance, but most of the time it’s just Bill moving around an empty car trying to figure out his next move. It’s a captivating performance that helps to show off just what Bill can do. Audiences in general know Bill can play a great villain, he’s so well known for it that it’s literally part of why he was cast in Barbarian because everyone expects him to do something fucked up so for him to play such a lovable loser with a massive chip on his shoulder is a nice change. He also manages to not look completely foolish while acting opposite Anthony Hopkins, who proves he can literally phone in an entire performance and still be goddamn terrifying. Indeed it’s kind of odd to admit that Hopkins actually loses some of his undeniable terror when he stops just being a voice on the phone and joins the film in person. He’s still damn good, I don’t think it’s possible for Anthony Hopkins to be anything less than damn good, but there’s a noticeable change in how intimidating he is once we actually see him instead of just hearing him… possibly because anyone with functioning eyesight can look at the two leads and guess who will come out on top if a physical fight were to break out at any point.

It’s also kind of interesting to see how Locked handles the generational divide with its more dialogue-heavy moments, since this film needs to do something to make “locked in a car” last for 90 minutes. A few of the big discussions between the two leads are just about how the older character thinks that the younger generation are a bunch of degenerate communists who don’t want to work like the older generation had to, meanwhile the younger character points out how the older character is insanely rich and can afford to spend endless amounts on an insane car like this while living in a million dollar apartment while his generation aren’t able to get by because a sudden $500 expense can ruin a person. It’s certainly important stuff to talk about and the film does clearly lean more towards the younger character’s side since he’s the more sympathetic character, but there are a lot of times during these pretty important scenes where it just leans into cliche. 

For no reason, the idea of being cancelled is brought up as though it’s relevant or even just asking “Are you triggered?”, for no reason other than it’s a cliche generalisation to throw out. It’s trying to present these arguments without fully understanding them itself, or at least how to express them in a way that feels real. There is certainly something to make that a big focus of Locked, after all it was a simple $500 car repair that puts Eddie on a path that made him break into the car in the first place, but the film never really explores these ideas much further. It brings them up, it argues about them, but in the end there is no real nuance to either side and it’s just kinda cliche at several major points.

Honestly, that lack of nuance is where Locked gets hurt the most, particularly in the final act where things ramp up and the film kind of turns into a generic action-thriller. It’s still got some shocking moments in it, a particularly emotional chase scene involving Eddie’s daughter will have your heart pounding, but at some point it feels like they see the end of the runtime coming and contrive an ending out of nowhere. It runs out of gas, puttering along to the final shots with nothing but the raw talent and charisma of the two leads to get it over the finish line. Again, the two leads are fantastic. I’d watch the two of them share a baloney sandwich and be highly entertained but after the intensity of the first half of the film the ending in particular leaves a lot to be desired. 

Locked has enough good ideas to help make for an interesting watch, the lead performances are truly great and you can tell that there was a great film in here at one point, but when the film stumbles over a few cliches, it never quite picks itself back up. Certainly not an awful film, but it could be so much more intense than they seemed to be able to make it and that just kind of drives me crazy.