By: Corey Lack
Lockout was a movie that was released in 2012, starring Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, and Joseph Gilgun. The plot features Guy Pearce’s Snow, a wrongly convicted government agent, being sent to a maximum-security prison in Earth’s orbit to rescue the president’s daughter (Grace) after the prisoners escape and take it over.
The movie has been accused of plagiarizing the cult classics, Escape from New York and Escape from Los Angeles. On the surface, I could see the argument as they both movie series involved a special forces/government agent going into a prison controlled by the inmates to rescue a member of the first family, but I’d say it was different enough to be considered its own movie. For one thing, the personalities of the two main characters are very different as Snake Plissken was more serious whereas Snow was more wisecracking and funnier. Another difference between the movies is the setting. Where the Escape movies took place in the titular cities, Lockout takes place mostly in a space station orbiting the Earth.
Despite being an action movie, there is a surprisingly small amount of combat going on. Sure, there are big chase sequences and acts of violence occurring, but there were very few long, drawn-out action scenes. No big gunfights and a few hand-to-hand fights. There wasn’t even a big climatic fight between the Snow and the main antagonist. Snow just snuck up behind him and took him out with a single punch to the face.
The best part of the movie though is definitely the dialogue. Pearce’s character had a lot of one-liners throughout the movie with each one actually making me chuckle. There were so many of them that he could give 80’s action movie characters a run for their money. The first line out of his mouth was a snarky one-liner.
Honestly, I thought it was a fun movie and an enjoyable time. The special effects were passable and the action was good, but the best part was definitely the dialogue. If you need a reason to see it, the dialogue alone is enough.
