'Locked Down': Film Review

Castle Douglas after an early morning incident.

Gallery: 20 female movie heroines who should make a comeback (Espresso)"If you're in the camp that I'm in. I think human beings are deeply funny, and if you feel that way, then there's a very good chance that you'll enjoy this film.

One of the first novel concepts introduced in Doug Liman’s tossed-off, super slight, and interminably paced “Locked Down” pandemic-set heist/relationship movie that tells you a little bit about the central couple’s status is the “confession avalanche.” The rather unpleasant Linda (Anne Hathaway) and disagreeable, perhaps vaguely mentally-unwell Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are weeks into the pandemic in London (circa April, at the height of people losing their minds), both are in the throes of

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticWhile moviegoers cope with being shut indoors, HBO Max has a film that could have you feeling even more stir-crazy. “Locked Down” sequesters audiences for nearly two hours with an unhappy couple (played by Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor), who vent for a time, before hatching a plan to steal a huge diamond from Harrods.

Anne Hathaway gets a much needed release from the stress of quarantine in HBO Max’s Locked Down. On Thursday’s episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, Hathaway talked with the host about her unique experience filming the heist movie in the midst of a pandemic.

One of the first novel concepts introduced in Doug Liman’s tossed-off, super slight, and interminably paced “Locked Down” pandemic-set heist/relationship movie that tells you a little bit about the central couple’s status is the “confession avalanche.” The rather unpleasant Linda (Anne Hathaway) and disagreeable, perhaps vaguely mentally-unwell Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are weeks into the pandemic in London (circa April, at the height of people losing their minds), both are in the throes of

Doug Liman's “Locked Down,” one of the first and most ambitious films to be conceived and shot during the pandemic, is, like our own quarantine experiences, erratic, a little absurd and sporadically delightful.Unlike our time in quarantine, it has Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway. This, not a small difference, is crucial in “Locked Down," an energetic romantic comedy-slash-heist movie that makes a game entry into the emerging genre of COVID-19 movies.

In the Doug Liman-directed Locked Down that premieres today on HBO Max, Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor play an estranged couple ready to call it quits if not for being shackled to their flat like every other Londoner by Covid. They co-exist uneasily and only find a spark when they hatch a daring plan to heist a diamond from Harrods before it is delivered to an overseas despot.

Watch Video: 'Locked Down' Trailer: Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor Steal a Diamond to Pass Time in COVIDAn utter coincidence happens: Paxton gets rehired to drive goods from London department stores out to storage in the countryside, while Linda is tasked by her superior (Ben Stiller) with taking a diamond that her company has had on display at Harrod’s and shipping it to New York, where its unsavory buyer will keep it locked away in a vault.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIt was likely, if not downright inevitable, that in the year of our lockdown, somebody would make a drama called “Locked Down,” about a handful of people in lockdown. The director Doug Liman and the screenwriter Steven Knight conceived their movie on July 1, sold it in September and had completed shooting it, in London, by the end of October.

HBO Max has debuted the trailer for the Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor quarantine heist film Locked Down, directed by Doug Liman. Set in the time of the coronavirus pandemic, the trailer opens to an all-too familiar scene — a Zoom call discussing the ongoing matters of global lockdown.