Lockout Movie Review

Lockout

                                                   

Lockout is a science fiction action movie released in 2012. It is directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, and written by Mather, St. Leger, and Luc Besson. The major characters of this movie is played by Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, and Peter Stormare.  Don’t confuse this movie with the crime thriller ‘The Lookout’ of 2007.

The movie Lockout is about a man who is falsely alleged for a murder and then sent to a high security prison in the space, where the prisoners have become free and has taken control of the whole facility. The man's mission is to save the President's daughter.  

Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace in a scene of the movie Lookout

Plot:

Lockout tells a story of 2079. A man (maybe a spy) named Snow gets wrongly accused by secret service for killing another secret service agent and for trading confidential data. He is shown evidence that he has killed the agent, but he denies it. He is then sent to jail. But before he gets arrested, he manages to slip a briefcase (which was supposed to have the important data) to his friend, who hides it in a locker.

In the meantime, the daughter of U.S.A. president Emilie goes to visit a prison in space, referred as MS1 (for Maximum Security). She interviews a prisoner (Hydell) but during the interview, Hydell brakes free from the chains and then he frees all the prisoners in that jail. The prisoners start a riot and kill most of the security guards and officers of the prison, led by Hydell’s elder bother. They just keep some (including Emillie) alive as a bait and takes control of the whole prison.

Secret service gets informed about this situation and knows about the condition of the President’s daughter. They convinces Snow to go to a rescue mission to MS1 to bring Emilie alive out of there. Snow agrees to go there knowing his friend was in that prison.

At MS1, Emilie manages to run from the hold-up and hides in a room with her bodyguard. But as oxygen gets almost finished in that room, her bodyguard commits suicide to give her a few more minutes. After she becomes unconscious, Snow brakes in that room and takes Emilie out before the prisoners enter the room by cutting the doors.

Snow then takes Emily to a hidden place and helps her to disguise. Then they starts to look for his friend, but only to find him gone insane. Snow cannot learn anything from him about the briefcase’s location.

The next part of the movie is about Snow’s rescue mission, about his fight to get out of that prison alive, about his getting out of the things he’s accused for.

My review about the movie Lockout:

First of all, I’d say, I liked the movie Lockout.

Lockout is a pretty regular science fiction action movie which is not very rare, but this one is well made and well directed.

One interesting thing about Lockout is Guy Pearce’s dialogues. They are hilarious! Its something like the famous ‘Men in Black’ movie series, which is a serious movie itself, but the hero’s dialogues will make you laugh every now and then. Just like that, there is no comedy scene in the whole movie Lockout and Snow is a pretty badass action hero, but his dialogues are massively humorous. Although by reading this review, you may think the funny dialogues may not properly fit with a serious crime movie, but in this one, the dialogues are enjoyable and have not harmed the Lockout’s seriousness, not even a bit.

The acting of the major characters are okay in Lockout , but I won't say perfect. In a movie like this, there were opportunities and they could be better. Same goes for the make up.

The special effects are also good. There is no lack or no over-do of special effects in Lockout. 

I think the plot is the only thing which has kept Lockout away from being perfect. I mean, the plot is good, but there are a few plot-holes or weakness in this movie which has harmed the solidness of the plot. For example, the security system at the prison (MS1) seemed unrealistic. How come such a high priority prison did not have any proper isolation for the prisoners planned for a case like this? The prisoners could break free and could take control of the whole situation very easily in Lockout (for example, we saw a very good illustration of kind of similar scenario in the movie “Conair”). Someone wanted to use sleeping gas on the whole premise, but failed as the rebel leader killed him. How come there was no option to that from the control room? Snow’s identity was not shown in this movie. He could be a criminal, a spy or a secret service agent, but none of them was explained. The way Snow was plotted seemed very weak. Why the right person was on the right place on the right time is also not shown in Lockout. We also didn’t get to see how the president was put back to his post after being pulled from it.

But don’t let this confuse you, as I said, even with this weakness, the plot of Lockout is good. For the plotholes, screenplay can be blamed, but the direction was good.

Although there is no nudity in Lookout, but for violence and language this one is not a good choice for children.

So, overall, the movie Lockout  is good, if not excellent. I’d recommend it to the action movie lover. According to my guess, you may not love it, but should like it.

What do you think of the movie Lockout? Let us know in the comments.

To know more:

IMDB link: Lockout (2012)

Wikipedia link: Lockout (2012) wiki

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon or to watch online, click here: Lockout Movie