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Monday, April 16, 2012

MOVIE REVIEW
Lockout
In Outer Space Logic, Pigs And Comedy Flies

Maggie Grace as Emilie, Tim Plester as Mace and Guy Pearce as Snow in "Lockout".  Open Road
    
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Monday, April 16, 2012

Perhaps the only thing more absurd premise-wise than "Cowboys And Aliens" in the last 12 months at the movies is "Lockout", the action drama propelled by an idea from "Lady" director Luc Besson, with whom directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger write this absurd comic tale.  In the near future in an overrun America, a prison population is so dangerous it has to be held in outer space. 

Police departments float around out there too, and in custody is one Snow (Guy Pearce), falsely convicted of spying against the U.S.  Snow, a casual, reluctant and unaffected type modeled after the cigar-chomping, Commando-looking Arnold Schwarzenegger, is offered freedom if he can rescue Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), the president's spoiled, entitled daughter, held by inmates who have overrun the asylum and want an escape route back to Earth. 

Snow's t-shirt bears a warning: "OFFENSIVE", and it sums up aspects of Snow's character, who breezily and thanklessly participates in an implausible endeavor.  Snow must get past ruthless inmates like Alex (Vincent Regan, excellent here) and his loose cannon of a brother Hydell (Joseph Gilgun) and find a suitcase that will uncover the truth of Snow's frame-up.

Mr. Pearce entertains with ease and wry comic timing, and is given snappy dialogue to make the most of.  He's essentially his "Memento" character Leonard Shelby with a more pronounced sense of humor and no short-term memory.  Snow would rather be anywhere but outer space, whether or not it has some of the most diabolical vermin the world has ever tried to exhume.  Mr. Pearce knows he's in an action movie and seems to stop time with his reactions to being in one, changing the pace of "Lockout" from a tense, standard action film into a campy, sedated procedural.  He's the breath of fresh air and fun that livens an otherwise silly, ridiculous affair.  "Lockout", drenched in blue-steel, manages to flaunt detailed production design, as imaginative as some of Mr. Besson's futuristic visualizations for "The Fifth Element".

Ms. Grace (who was in "Taken" -- its producers also produced "Lockout"), is impressive in the film's second half as Emilie, who gives as good as she gets, going toe-to-toe with Snow.  Emilie and Snow could have been a great movie couple in the 1950s, and the chemistry between Ms. Grace and Mr. Pearce is strong, with punch lines that flow from their banter like clean running water.  Both their characters are smarter than the situations they are placed in.  They know this, and bide their time as the villains of this hyperactive, over-pumped circus emerge, re-emerge and spring forth from the film's hollow woodwork.  In "Lockout", which had me laughing in many instances, several characters do very questionable, unexplained things, often for the sake of raising the film's body count or its idiocy.

It's too bad the dialogue given to many other remaining characters is as empty as "Lockout" ultimately is.  At times it's hard to believe that actors are actually saying what sounds like such poorly-written speech.  "Lockout" leaves logic on planet Earth, while insanity takes over.  And you know the world has turned pineapple upside down when Peter Stormare appears as an icy good guy and is not even close to being the interesting malevolent force he often plays.  Mr. Stormare does well, but is far from the center of attention aboard this scattershot enterprise.

After seeing "Lockout" I was surprised to learn that it had been rated PG-13 by the MPAA, a curious designation since virtually every violent episode in the film screams "R".  (The R-rated "The Cabin In The Woods" isn't much more violent in my eyes, and even in context, as a horror film.)  Logic has once again left that august, mysterious body.

With: Lennie James, Peter Hudson, Jacky Ido, Tim Plester, Nick Hardin, Anne-Solenne Hatte.

"Lockout" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for intense sequences of violence and action, and language including some sexual references.  The film's running time is one hour and 35 minutes.

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