Locked is a 2025 psychological thriller directed by David Yarovesky, who previously made Brightburn, written by Michael Arlen Ross and produced by Sam Raimi. It runs 96 minutes, was made for around five million dollars and took roughly the same at the box office. Bill Skarsgård plays Eddie, a petty thief and struggling father who breaks into a luxury SUV, only to find himself locked inside and tormented by its owner William, voiced through the car's speakers by Anthony Hopkins. It is a remake of the 2019 Argentinian film 4x4, and that turns out to be the most important fact about it.

Let me start with Hopkins, because I have a genuine question. Sir. What are you doing here? I am aware you are approaching one thousand years old and have long since earned the right to accept whatever work appeals to you. But you are better than this, and I suspect you know it. I am also not remotely alone in thinking so. One reviewer observed that he delivers his lines like a man who signed on for a better film, and another was considerably blunter, suggesting he must be experiencing financial difficulty.

Now for the genuine positives. Bill Skarsgård's American accent is far better than I anticipated, which is a real achievement given that he is Swedish. I simply forgot, throughout, that he was doing an accent at all, which is the highest compliment the work can receive. He is also good in the role generally, carrying an enormous amount of the film alone in a single confined space.

And the trapped-location film is, once again, one of my absolute favourite formats. Take a person, remove their options, seal them in, and watch them come apart under pressure. When it is done well there is very little better, and this looked like it was going to be an interesting variation on the idea.

It simply did not land, and the frustrating part while watching was that I could not identify why.

Was it the moment Eddie drinks his own urine? Possibly. Was it the sequence in which he produces a gun, fires at the window, discovers that the glass is bulletproof, and takes the ricochet directly into his own leg? That is genuinely what happens, and it is difficult to remain invested in a protagonist who shoots himself by shooting somebody else's car. Was it the fingernail snapping off while he attempts to operate a switch, after which he spends a substantial portion of the remaining film trying to manoeuvre his big toe into the same gap? That is a considerable amount of screen time devoted to one toe.