Lockout (2012)

Written by Per Gunnar Jonsson on March 31, 2013

We watched this movie more or less by chance last evening. We normally do not have Canal+ in our “bouquet” but they are making a drive right now so everyone can watch Canal+ for a couple of weeks and this movie looked interesting, at least compared to the rest of the choice available that evening, so we watched it.

It was a surprisingly entertaining evening movie. It is pretty much a standard Hollywood nonsensical pop-corn movie but it is a well done one. It makes no pretence of being anything else than it is. The story is a fairly predictable action story. Hero gets framed during the introduction scenes. Quick flip to the space prison that is going to serve as the scenery of the bulk of the movie. Dumbass thinks he is more clever than everyone else so he breaks the rules. Goes bad. Prisoners break out. President’s daughter just happens to be there at the same tame. Our hero is sent in to save the day. Action time!

There are a few more complications to the story but that is pretty much it. It is a simple and solid story that pretty much holds water. It would have been a fairly standard, even mediocre, movie if it was not for our hero which is doing an admirable job of playing hero and tough guy. The dialog, as nonsensical as it is, definitely lifts the move. The action is fairly good and so are the special effects although it is by no means a movie that is held up by its effects. The main bad guy is a really irritating psychotic son-of-a-bitch. The actor is doing a good job of portraying him but the character itself bugged the hell out of me when watching the movie. He is a bit over the top that has to be said.

Anyway, the movie was quite entertaining as an evening pop-corn flick and since we picked it more or less by chance and did not know much about it before hand it was indeed a fairly pleasant surprise.