SIP Movie Review Blog

Wow, watched a stinkeru of a movie, Lockout, starring Guy Pearce (Hurt Locker, L A Confidential), Maggie Grace (Taken, Knight and Day), Vince Regan (300, Troy), Joseph Gilgun (Harry Brown, This Is England), Lennie James (Snatch, Sahara), and Peter Stormare (Fargo, Armageddon).  Guy plays a fellow who is wrongly accused of espionage, crimes against the government.  He is offered his freedom if he helps rescue the President’s daughter who is being held hostage in a space station jail floating high in orbit above earth.  She (Maggie Grace) was up there interviewing the 500 prisoners to be sure they were being treated well, when one of the bad guys (Joseph Gilgun) gets a gun and takes over the station.  He releases all the other inmates, it gets pretty tense.  Joseph is a nasty sort, he thinks nothing of killing the guards if he doesn’t get his way, which is most of the time.  Sporting some bad dental work, one cloudy eye, and lots of tattoos, he plays a good bad guy.  Turns out his brother is also up there, played by Vince Regan, who has done lots of no-shirt type movies, 300 and Troy are two good examples. 

Vince, being a level or two smarter, understands that if they kill all the hostages, they will be killed.  So he tries to negotiate a release, or at least a hold back of the Marines who are set to charge in and blow up the station.  Another bad guy we like to see is Peter Stormare, one large rascal who has been in similar movies, the most famous is Fargo, where the played the guy who used a wood-chipper to get rid of Steve Buscemi.  But I digress. 

The movie had a couple of major problems.  First of all, it is set in 2075.  When the convicts get control of the station, they have a lot of guns.  Joseph has a giant Colt 6 shooter with extended barrel.  Many of them have 12 guage shotguns, the cops are carrying glocks.  Come on people, this is 60 years from now.  Don’t ya think there would be photon guns, that sort of thing?  And Guy is SO over the top sarcastic, it really gets irritating.  So we were not impressed.  There are a couple of neat scenes in outer space, but the last segment is way past probability.  Or possibility.  So we will go with a warning.  Don’t pay for this one.  Wait till it comes out on HBO, or one of those, shouldn’t take long.  2 Skylabs.