Danny’s a respectable cop from a family of respectable cops who works deep cover doing the kinds of cases nobody in their right mind would want to do. As a result, he’s setup and shipped off to the maximum security prison housing most of the guys he’s put away over the years, one of which is Vargas who just happens to be running the prison. When Vargas forces Danny to fight in his martial arts death matches Danny looks to his cellmate Irving for training so he can survive long enough to clear his name.
First and foremost, despite my love for these types of movies, this flick steals from just about every similar film out there, all of which were done infinitely better. I really hate that THIS is what martial arts films have been reduced to these days. UNDISPUTED 1, 2 and 3 were great films making do with the fact that martial arts movies have become straight to DVD fare and are undoubtedly the source from where this mess originated. I love martial arts films and it thoroughly annoys me that I have to wait large gaps in time before seeing one surface (BLOOD AND BONE being another good one), especially when garbage like this comes around pretending to be something of worth. Trust me, it’s not.
The acting here is an insult; why in the name of God Vinnie Jones signed up for this crapshoot is beyond me. And it’s not that the writing is overly terrible but rather those talking simply can’t sell it. The storyline is predictable and totally transparent. This is a connect the dots for kids recount of UNDISPUTED 2 without the one key element that made that film so epic: the martial arts. These fighters try to make it look like they know what they’re doing, something I think the director tried to help out by shooting an overabundance of slow motion hits but in reality all that did was give me a clear view of just how poorly these boys could fight.
Now speaking of the fighting, I have no idea whatsoever why Kimbo Slice is even in here. The guy’s splashed all over the cover (twice in fact) and does show up in the film for one pretty good cage fight (which wasn’t bad) but his presence made no sense as he wasn’t one of Vargas’ brutes or his champion and he didn’t fight Danny either, just some nameless fool who didn’t matter and then you never see or hear about him again. This flick tries to cover up foolishness like this by adding lots of boobs and sex scenes as well as an admittedly fantastic soundtrack in hopes of tricking us into thinking it’s a good time. Sadly, when I sit down to watch a fighting movie I’d rather see some kickass fighting.
LOCKED DOWN is horrible and did nothing for me save make me crave a good martial arts flick even more than I already am. I totally recommend picking up the soundtrack, I’m sure it would make for some cool driving or workout tunes but other than that, there are no redeeming qualities here to be found. The story’s been done (and much better I might add), the fighting is a joke and the acting is atrocious. Stone Cold Steve Austin may not be the best actor in the world, but his fighting flick DAMAGE was awesome and shows that the fighting era isn’t dead if you put a little TLC into the mix. I guess we can’t win them all, but this film was a no win situation from start to finish.
Video: 1.78:1 Widescreen in 1080p HD with AVC codec. The video quality was cool for being shot mostly in a prison but the shaky camera thing was getting annoying.
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD in English with English subtitle option. Hands down the best part about this flick was the score. It’s not often I’m interesting in buying soundtracks but I’d pick this one up for sure.
Commentary (1:39:00): Writer/Director Daniel Zirilli and actor Tony Schiena walk us through the film and I’m loving how Zirilli’s all proud of himself for coming up with this story, talking and raving on about it like we haven’t seen it a hundred times before. Nice work brother.
Behind the Scenes (4:17): Bubba B (who I can only guess is a rapper) decides to sing us through most of this feature. There’s not a whole lot here to be seen anyway so I guess it didn’t really hurt anything.
Fight Choreography on the Set of Locked Down (2:00): I don’t blame them for being so short with this one as I’d also be embarrassed if I had anything to do with this awful fight choreography.
Interviews with MMA Fighters, Cast and Crew (17:01): There isn’t much to these so called interviews, just a couple words being said about the film and then a cut straight to the footage featuring whoever was talking. Kimbo Slice seems like a pretty cool guy though.
Tapout Promos (1:57): This brief two minutes is broken down into three quick commercials to promote Tapout products like a Nike commercial only with little kids training to fight and dudes posing all tough.
Previews: There’s a trailer for the feature film as well as a bunch of other Lionsgate trailers.
