Pretty much every Millennial or Zoomer has bickered with their Boomer parents over what exactly is wrong with society today, but the argument isn’t typically this extreme. In Locked on Hulu, Eddie (Bill Skarsgård) and William (Anthony Hopkins) violently exhaust the timeworn debate in the singular setting of William’s luxury car. After Eddie breaks into the vehicle looking to make a quick buck, he is locked in and tortured prodigiously as part of William’s twisted quest for justice.
The Gist: The film begins as Eddie bargains with a mechanic for his van back. He ignores a call from his daughter, Sarah (Ashley Cartwright), and answers a call from his wife, who strings him out for forgetting to pick Sarah up from school, again. Here it becomes clear that Eddie, well, sucks.
When he can’t afford to buy his van back, he steals a wallet, buys a bunch of lottery tickets and prowls for a car to rob. He comes across an unlocked luxury vehicle and hops in. Finding just a pair of sunglasses to lift, Eddie tries to flee the scene, but fails. He’s locked in, and there’s no way out. The car is soundproof, the windows are tinted black, and even a bullet won’t shatter the glass.
The car then gets a call from a contact titled “Answer Me.” On the other end of the line is William, the vehicle’s posh-sounding owner. William chastises Eddie for trying to steal from him, but Eddie holds firm, cursing William out and yelling to be released. This kickstarts a whirlwind of torture, including ear-shattering yodeling played on the car speakers, tazer-ridden seats, freezing AC and blistering heat, all before the car even starts to move.
Eddie rots in the vehicle for DAYS before William decides to drive it around remotely in a maniacal and murderous manner. This is when the film finally gets entertaining enough to justify its thriller classification. Eventually, Eddie has had enough, ripping the cameras out of the car walls and destroying all he could of William’s torture chamber. This prompts William to finally pay Eddie a visit IRL. He forces Eddie to zip tie himself to the car and gets in the driver’s seat. Sinister tools including a hammer and saw protrude from his bag.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Imagine if Christine, Phone Booth and Saw had a love child, then douse it in the societal criticism of a Black Mirror episode.
Performance Worth Watching: Skarsgård’s dynamic performance saves the day in this film, making spectacular use of the confined space in the vehicle. He plays a perfectly believable dirtbag, failing to gain my sympathy until very late in the movie. Anthony Hopkins is a flawless fit for a classic Hannibal type, obsessed with classical music and vengeance with a distorted sense of justice.
Memorable Dialogue: There are plenty of unintentionally hilarious lines in the film, but my personal favorite? Eddie’s emphatic mic-drop moment toward the end: “Street smarts, bitch.”
A close second is William’s upper-crust English accent as tells Eddie, “Tough titty.”
Sex and Skin: Eddie gets nearly naked when William cranks the car’s heat as a form of torture. But don’t get too excited. It happens only just before he’s forced to drink his own urine. Yep, you read that right.
Our Take: Skarsgård was integral to the success of this one setting film. He makes us feel the claustrophobia and terror of being trapped from the moment he’s locked in, and his character arc, though predictable, is very well-performed. Anthony Hopkins has a lot of fun here as well, clearly enjoying his role as the unhinged psychopath with a deranged sense of humor.
Skarsgård and Hopkins bounced off each other to create tension, suspense and fear — an especially impressive feat given they weren’t even in the same room for 90% of the film. I almost never knew what was going to happen next — besides the actual ending, which felt a tad predictable. All the ingredients for a decent thriller are here, and filmmakers David Yarovesky and Sam Raimi’s overall message felt timely, though painfully obvious.
The dynamic between William and Eddie is typical — wealthy, socially apathetic senior who thinks poor people just need to pick themselves up by the bootstraps meets young struggling person who feels society is to blame. While an honorable attempt at social critique, the themes are too brazenly woven into the lackluster script, making it feel surface-level and gimmicky.
For me, this movie felt dragged out. The idea itself would have worked better as the premise to an episode of Black Mirror. However, while 90 minutes may have been overkill, it wasn’t so long that I regret the watch.
Our Call: Locked would have impressed if its creators had more trust in the audience to understand its meaning without spelling it out so blatantly. Still, the film is a worthy experiment and entertaining enough to STREAM IT.