Unlocked review: Celebrated filmmaker Michael Apted unlocks some major Hollywood talent for this sub-par British crime thriller.
Unlocked review by Paul Heath.
Unlocked comes to the screen from directing legend Michael Apted, the man responsible for the likes of Gorillas In The Mist, Bond movie The World Is Not Enough and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, amongst many others. His six-decade career has seen Apted tackle many genres with varying budgets, but the filmmaker turns his hand to the world of crime in England’s capital with this new thriller loaded with tons of Hollywood talent.
Noomi Rapace leads the cast as Alice Racine, a former CIA interrogator who is lured back into action when London is put in danger of a biological attack. Racine is working as a social worker in the capital after failing to contain a terrorist attack in Paris five years earlier where she couldn’t unlock a prisoner before he devastated the city. There’s a stream of Hollywood talent in the film, including Michael Douglas as Alice’s station chief, Toni Collette as the head of MI5 in the UK, and also John Malkovich as a CIA chief, who may be the best thing about the film.
Think of Unlocked as an extended episode of Homeland, mixed in with a bit of London Has Fallen by way of Bourne and a tiny sprinkling of Bond. With those superb genre movies, and yes I would include Gerard Butler’s action sequel in that purely for the ridiculous nature and approach, you may think you’re in store for something quite special, especially due to the director’s back catalogue, though in reality, unfortunately not. Bar Malkovich, who is simply being John Malkovich in glorious fashion, it’s hard to find anything positive. The film is bland, dull and boring. Its non-glossy approach suits the subject matter but unfortunately the film can’t quite decide on its tone. At certain points you expect it to go the way of London Has Fallen in terms of it going all out with the knowing self-indulgence, action set-pieces and cartoon-character characters, but in some scenes you get those hints of absolute seriousness which, when combined, don’t really work.
I haven’t mentioned Orlando Bloom yet, but I will now. Bloom appears in just a handful of scenes, the actor assuming the role of Jack, a mockney-accented marine. His presence baffles, as indeed does everything about the character, and his performance unfortunately doesn’t quite cut it. On the flip-side Rapace just about manages to convince as Racine, but the actress seems to be treading water to stay afloat in a movie with a plot so weak, it’s difficult to see why so much A-list talent attached themselves to it.
It’s another film in a long line of almost direct-to-DVD disposable content boasting prime talent (read Criminal and most of Bruce Willis’ recent output) that seems to becoming a common occurrence in release schedules of major Hollywood labels. Some manage to just about impress, but this certainly isn’t one of them. Avoid.
Unlocked review by Paul Heath, May 2017.
Unlocked is released in UK cinemas on Friday 5th May, 2017.
