Gridlocked

"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.

This movie was a real blast! So many times films like this are usually pretty disappointing to me, mainly because producers always seem to go out of their way to ruin stories like this with over-the-top 'acting' and artificially pumped up stupidity (does that actually make sense...???)

Anyway, one thing that I really liked about the film, in addition to it's great @ss-Kicking all over the place, were the surprisingly intelligent characters and particularly the way the interaction between the two main guys was done. To me, this was by FAR the best performance of Dominic Purcell that I have EVER seen. I frigg'n LOVED 'Prison Break', but his acting was not even CLOSE to a highlight of that series (sorry man...) BUT... in THIS film, I actually felt that he came across far more 'REAL' as a person. I honestly thought that his acting has greatly improved with this role.

I also really liked the guy they chose to play the 'Star'; he was absolutely PERFECT! In a role like this, it would be so easy to screw it up by him being over-douchey and stupid. But, I thought that the way that the film makers portrayed him being a punk, but at the same time showing a believable, sympathetic side to him, was nicely balanced.

There was also a fair amount of rather clever humour that worked pretty well. So, all in all, I really found the movie to be very entertaining, not so over-the-top that it ruined it either character wise or otherwise. And, the action was pretty good too. All the 'Bullet Ballet' stuff (as another reviewer here mentioned) was done fairly well. Probably the only slight thing that I would mention in my lowly and wretched opinion, and maybe this is just my personal preference, is that SOME of the action I felt was a bit heavy handed with the fast, quick edit stuff. I've never really been a fan of that. It wasn't as bad as many films are in this area where you can't tell what the hell is going on, but for me personally, I think that if they had taken a BIT more of a classic, traditional approach (such as in the Carpenter film) and gone for just a TAD more of a pulled-back, classic, more moodily choreographed approach, just a BIT, and cut down a LITTLE on the tight, fast edited close action, I personally feel that that would have elevated this film almost to cult status.

If you wanna be bitchy about it, the last act probably COULD have been tightened up just a bit to give it more punch, but that is just a super MINOR thought, no biggie...

I really liked this movie and I personally found it VERY fun and refreshing, especially with all the destructively stupid, extreme crap that Hollywood continually tries to force down our throats. It was most engaging, the characters were intelligent and believable (something NOT usually done very well these days) and the action was great! I genuinely feel that this film does pretty much EXACTLY what it sets out to do, and does it far better than most...

As it started out I was pleasantly surprised, the first 35 minutes is genuinely entertaining and I was starting to think it was cool to see Dominic Purcell in something good again.

But in the second third the plot just get stuck... or gridlocked if you will, set in the same building throughout and it becomes rather dull with little action and I'm sure this bit was meant to be intense and unsettling, but the acting really prevents that from happening.

Don't get me wrong, the actors are fine when it comes to the action bits and funnier parts but yeah they don't really have the dramatic skills to make the second third interesting.

Luckily it picks up a bit in the last third, but man... By then it was hard to start getting the same excitement you had in the beginning, so yeah could definitely done with some more excessive editing.

The ending opens up for a potential sequel, which I honestly wouldn't mind seeing but just hoping for they'll set it on a little more locations than they did this one.

Cool soundtrack though, some old school rap from Tone Loc and others.

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.

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.