If you’re a filmmaker looking to get noticed with a high-concept, low-budget film , trapping a protagonist in a small space for an entire movie is a tried and true strategy. Joel Schumacher found success by confining Colin Farrell to a pay phone in “Phone Booth,” Willem Dafoe charmed audiences while locked in a penthouse in “Inside,” and now fans of such films can look forward to watching Bill Skarsgård spend almost an entire feature film inside an SUV in “Locked.” A remake of the Argentine thriller “4×4,” and often too cheesy for its own good, David Yarovesky’s two-hander stars Skarsgård as a small-time carjacker who picks the wrong self-driving vehicle to break into.
He finds himself trapped and tortured over the phone by William ( Anthony Hopkins ), a dying man who is sick of petty crime. The film’s attempts at exploring morality might be underwhelming, but “Locked” finds plenty of silly opportunities to exploit its gimmick of a premise, likely to the delight of anyone who willingly buys a ticket to a movie about Bill Skarsgård being locked in a car. Not since Jean Valjean stole bread to feed starving children have we been expected to sympathize with a thief as much as we are at the beginning of “Locked.
” Eddie Barrish (Skarsgård) is a hustler who can’t catch a break to save his life. His beat-up van needs a new alternator, and a mechanic is trying to shake him down for double what he pays in rent every month to do the job. He can�.
