Gridlocked

If you've seen one you've seen them all. I've seen this movie about 8 times with different actors. Lockeddown in the police station fighting off a group of bad guys. A team of policeman fight there way out. Notable things I learned from this. I'd you someone tries to gas you to death ...pee neutralizes it so get to peeing. Also Trish stratus was a Solid minor character...give it a watch for free but don't pay for it.

Some famous moviestar named Brody gets himself arrested. His punishment: riding along with a cop. Of course they don't get along; the cop (Dave) doesn't want to babysit, but the actor tries to be friendly and eventually wins Dave over. Dave agrees to take him to the clubhouse--his former unit's station. Dave was SWAT but for some reason, that we don't find out, he's now assigned to low-level tasks. We meet his unit made up only of another guy, a little girl, and a rookie.

Elsewhere some paramilitary guys are up to no good. They set up on someone's ranch after killing the owners.

It's late at night but for some reason a network repair team arrives. Of course they are bad guys and detonate an EMP device that cripple the station's electronics. They are also forced to kill some security guards there. This is witnessed by Brody but no one pays attention to him. Eventually Dave and the rest of the unit realize what's going on and a shootout ensues. The bad guys are directed by the paramilitary guys off-site led by Korver.

After SWAT takes control of the situation they finally get around to wondering what the bad guys were doing there to begin with. There's some underground rooms that include an evidence locker. We learn that Korver wants some bearer bonds stored there so he organizes an assault on the station. Our SWAT guys of course are undermanned and underarmed since stuff is being moved to another station.

There are a couple of surprises and lots of exciting action. The main cast is very strong with Purcell, Lang, Glover, Jones. Some of the rest of the cast are weak. The other SWAT don't look the part at all. The story is good though as it goes beyond just action. But the action does shine here. There is no shortage of B-action movies with one or two big names, but Gridlocked is better than most A-action movies that are released in theaters.

This is a passable action thriller. As many review have indicated, it is pretty much a Attack on Precinct 13 storyline. Once it gets going, the action is pretty consistent. Why only 5 stars? One unnecessary character was tasked with blurting out non-funny comedic one liners. Very few films can mix gun action and comedy successful, while maintaining the required tension(DieHard and Lethal Weapon did it best). This movie did not. So too many scenes where you are trying to slightly be concerned with someone's safety, dumb one-liner is inserted for no reason at all(think JarJar Blinks). Outside of that, it could have been a decent action movie.

I originally heard of Gridlocked through the website Twitch, who had said that it was like a throw back to 90's action movie. They were not wrong. Felt like I was watching an old PM Entertainment movie. The only thing missing was an appearance from Jeff Wincott.

Originally I was a bit apprehensive, as star Dominic Purcell has not got the best track record. No fault to him, as he is always a welcome presence, but his films of late have been poor. This may be down to the fact that they have mainly been directed or produced by Uwe Boll.

Luckily there are no such drawbacks this time round, with great production values, and excellent action scenes, this is definitely one of the better DTV actioners I have seen in a while.

Performance wise, Purcell is his usual reliable self as the lead. Stephen Lang is great as the villain, although could have had a bit more screen time. Danny Glover gets limited screen time for his usual too old for this role. WWE superstar Trish Stratus still looks great and gets a number of decent action scenes, and Vinnie Jones is thrown in for good measure.

The only drawback is Cody Hackman, as the film star that has to work with Purcell as part of his Community Service. He can be slightly annoying, and the fact that he is playing an A list movie star, it would have been better to get someone that has movie star quality. This is a minor problem, and with the rest of the movie being of higher quality than usual, its not much of a complaint. Surprisingly Hackman is a karate champion, but he actually doesn't really participate in a lot of the action in the film.

There is a slight slow build to the siege part of the film, but once it begins it doesn't let up, with there being a number of violent shootouts taking place. The film definitely earns its R rating. The Director is going to be someone I will be keeping an aye on.

"Brodie Walker" (Cody Hackman) is a spoiled movie star who keeps getting into trouble with the law to the extent that it is seriously affecting his ability to acquire any new roles in the film industry. "David Hendrix" (Dominic Purcell) is the leader of a SWAT team who was injured on duty and has to get medical approval in order to return to duty. So while working for the police department doing various tasks he gets assigned one particular job that nobody would voluntarily accept-having to escort Brodie Walker on patrol while he is serving on a court-appointed referral program designed to test his ability to stay out of trouble. As if this wasn't bad enough some dangerous criminals decide to raid the SWAT training site which happens to have some valuable bonds being held there in a secret storage room. And these criminals have thought of everything-or at least that is what they believe. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a pretty good action film which, unfortunately, suffered from too many unrealistic scenarios to be taken seriously. But that's Hollywood I suppose. Still, if a person is interested in action simply for the sake of action then I suppose this film is as good as anything else in that category. Average.