On the couch

DVD REIVEW

Lockout ****
Directed by: James Mather, Stephen St Leger
Starring: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, Peter Stormare

If Lockout were a meal (go with me on this…) it would probably be a pretty good steak sandwich with some surprisingly good mustard.
Starring Guy “Why isn’t he more famous and successful” Pearce as CIA agent Snow, the idea is simple – the US president’s daughter gets trapped on a space jail orbiting the Earth after the (mostly insane) inmates take over and only one man is fit to mount the rescue. Rather than a square-jawed super patriot, however, Snow is a bit rough around the edges and en route to the space chokey after being found guilty of murder. So a case of gamekeeper turned hunter… turned gamekeeper again then.
As you might expect, the crims in charge of the clink are a salty bunch, recently revived from some sort of stasis sleep that renders them easy for the wardens to deal with but a little prone to going mental upon reawakening. The criminal hoard is led by a particularly nasty, square-headed piece of work, Alex (Vincent Regan) and his Latoya Jackson-level crazy brother, Hydell (Joseph Gilgun – a familiar face to fans of the most recent series of Misfits).
After going to the trouble of establishing the main plot, there is also a nice sub-plot involving the circumstances which led Snow to be charged with murder.
It all smacks of political intrigue and overlaps nicely with the main story, as the two senior government chappies in charge of the rescue attempt – Langral (Peter Stormare) and Shaw (Lennie James) – are also involved in whatever dark dealings had to do with railroading Snow.
Once the stage is set, however, it’s full steam ahead for a sort of extra-planetary tribute to Die Hard.
This is meat and potatoes action. Shot primarily on green screen in Belgrade, based on storyboards produced in Dublin, the world is grey, grim and surprisingly believable given very little of it actually exists.
The action scenes are imaginative, but not revolutionary. Where the mustard comes in is with two characters in particular – Snow and Hydell.
Pearce is fantastic as Snow. He quips, curses, grimaces and plays the morally ambiguous hero to a tee. It’s like they took a young Bruce Willis and taught him how to act. Well yipee-kay-aye!
In some ways it’s an odd role for Pearce, given the beat he normally walks is entirely more thesp-y and serious. But in a career characterised by a sizable “I’ll do what I damn well please” streak, it makes a little more sense.
Which is probably just as well because he’s not getting a whole pile of help from Maggie Grace as the kidnapped daughter, Emilie.
Despite the character not being a  complete Penelope Pitstop, the First Daughter is about as useful as a Pioneer pin on Paddy’s Day and Grace, god bless her, does little to elevate the character out of its fairly stereotypical straits.
The other high point is Joseph Gilgun as Hydell. A mean, nasty, irksome piece of work, Hydell is about as uncomfortable-making a freak as has been committed to celluloid (or whatever they’re using for films these days) this year.
Jerky and weird, Gilgun never allows the stupidity of his character to distract from the fact that he’s a vicious killer and deserving of fear and contempt. Ridiculous he may be, but he’s anything but a punchline.
Lockout may not be remembered for re-inventing the action genre like The Matrix did but it does hark back to some of the classics of the ’80s when an action film meant gruff, unshaven men having their asses kicked by a quip-happy hero.
You might not be overawed but you definitely won’t be disappointed.