Locked Down Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

4. Steven Knight's Witty Script

Though in its entirety Locked Down is definitely an indulgent, excessively overbaked project, the two central performances are aided immeasurably by a sharp script from Steven Knight.

While Knight has a Best Original Screenplay nomination to his name for 2002's Ejiofor-starring drama Dirty Pretty Things and has penned numerous acclaimed films such as Eastern Promises, Locke, and The Hundred-Foot Journey, he recently fell foul of critics with his 2019 Hathaway-starring disaster Serenity.

Knight's script here certainly isn't among his best - albeit likely written at a faster-than-usual pace - but it's nevertheless filled with enough witty, slightly heightened banter to mostly satisfy.

As already mentioned, Hathaway in particular gets a lot of fun one-liners to chew through here, many of which relate to both the tragedy and the black comedy of life during the pandemic.

Both Linda and Paxton regularly mention "when lockdown's over" enough that it practically becomes a mantra for the movie itself, and one which most viewers will find easy kinship with.