Lockout

PG-13; running time – 1 hour 35 minutes

Starring: Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace

I had total flashbacks during this movie. No, not that kind of flashback. It was back to one of my favorite periods for movies, the late 80’s. That was the era of the unstoppable one man wrecking machine fully capable of taking on all bad guys while spewing forth wise cracking one-liners. I love those movies, so it should come as no surprise that I liked Lockout a lot.

Guy Pearce plays this part by channeling his inner Snake Plisskin (a role made famous by Kurt Russell in Escape from New York and Escape from LA). He did a pretty good job at it too. This time the one man gang’s name is Snow, just Snow. Do you really need 2 names to take on a whole prison full of psychotic inmates? I didn’t think so. Snow is sent to a prison in space where the prisoners are cryogenically frozen. I bet neither Steve McQueen nor Clint Eastwood could escape from this prison. I mean what are they going to do, float away? So why, you ask, is the hero going there to flex his muscles and his wits? It’s because Maggie Grace, who is well practiced in being kidnapped from her role in Taken, is in peril and cliché of all clichés; she is the President’s daughter. You know so many have kidnapped the Prez’s daughter and it never ends well. You’d think they could find someone else to kidnap. Of course there is a sub plot going too. Because we find, early on, our smart-ass hero Snow is being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. So of course he has to prove his innocence while rescuing the First Daughter-in-distress while fighting a bunch of recently thawed psychos (especially the cat that gets the whole thing rolling). The special effects are okay, except for one scene involving a motorcycle chase that’s looks like a bad video game excerpt.

If you like the movies from around the late 80’s to early 90’s where the hero throws one-liners like he throws right hooks, go see this movie. It’ll entertain the hell out of you. Guy Pearce isn’t Bruce Willis or Arnold, but he’ll do if you need to scratch that action hero itch.