Lockdown

THIS was directed by experienced director Massimiliano Cerchi, who also wrote it along with another experienced writer? A 5th grader could write and direct this better. We did watch the entire film, because we changed our attitude that we were watching a comedy, and the beers and bongs eased the pain of what we were put through.

There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this mess, with the only exception being Michael Wainwright as McMasters, who's performance was Oscar-worthy - compared to the others, including Pare, who seemed asleep for the most part. I'm sure most of the poor acting blame goes to Cerchi, who clearly offered zero cast direction. Scott Engrotti as Snake was decent, but everyone else was unconvincing, especially the female FBI officer, and Bai Ling, who I couldn't understand anything she was saying over her constant yelling and screaming, and who was just annoying af.

The writing was also by far the worst I have seen, riddled with plot and technical issues, incohesive and total nonsense, especially each time the plot changed from scene to scene. There was zero credibility in how the FBI handled the entire situation, and eating and drinking coffee seemed more important and abundant. The best part of the film was the ten-second dream Bai Ling had. The rest of it was slow, boring and cringeworthy. The editing was the worst I have ever seen, the sound and score typical B-film unfitting and annoying.

I don't know who funded and greenlight Cerchi's final cut and said "awesome, let's go to market", but they all need to take up a new hobby. This mess makes all the recent Bruce Willis flops seem like Oscar-worthy films. Yup, it's THAT bad. And even worse that an experienced director and writer gave us this nonsense. It's a very generous 3/10, mostly all going to Wainwright's amazing (compared to the rest) performance.

It took me a while to make sure that it wasn't bad on purpose. You spend more time wondering how a film like this could be made... who spent money on it... and why? Obviously folks who like a lot of cheap violence. And on top of all of this... the lightning is horrible.

As I sat down to watch the 2022 action drama "Lockdown" from writers Massimiliano Cerchi and Rod Smith, then I can't really claim that I was expecting a whole lot. Why? Well, first of all, I hadn't even heard about the movie, and secondly it wasn't exactly top billing on the cast list.

But still, I opted to watch "Lockdown" on the notion of it being a new movie that I hadn't already seen, and who knew, maybe I would be pleasantly surprised with the movie?

Well, I wasn't pleasantly surprised with director Massimiliano Cerchi's movie. Sure, it was watchable, but that was about all that "Lockdown" had going on. The storyline was pretty simplistic, perhaps a bit too simplistic actually, because the movie quickly settled into monotonous droning pace and never got out of that particular ditch. And the storyline suffered from being generic and predictable.

The acting performances in "Lockdown" were adequate for a movie such as this. However, I have to say that Bai Ling's performance was just all over the place here, and she was initially one of the reasons for why I actually picked up the movie to begin with.

"Lockdown" is a movie that you will watch once and never return to a second time. I managed to sit through the entire movie, but I wasn't particularly impressed or overly entertained. If you enjoy crime thrillers then there are far better and more enjoyable and entertaining movies out there.

My rating of "Lockdown" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

A cluster muddle of stereotype characters locked in a cliché hostage negotiation with dreadful dialogue and a massively intrusive soundtrack. Other than that it is not too bad!

This is a vapid vanity project written, directed and produced by Massimiliano Cerchi, never seen anything from him before and hope not to in the future. Nobody emerges with glory from what is without doubt the worst movie I have had the misfortune to endure this year.

Perfectly stupid. The script is childish, dialogues are apparently written by a non native english speaker who believes a generous use of the f-word adds athenticity. And what is Paré doing among these obviously amateur actors? He might not be a star but still, he is (or was) a professional. Old age is unforgiving, huh?