UNLOCKED (US/Switzerland/UK - 2017) Directed by Michael Apted. Written by Peter O'Brien. Cast: Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, Michael Douglas, John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Matthew Marsh, Makram J. Khoury, Brian Caspe, Philip Brodie, Michael Epp, Ayman Hamdouchi, Tosin Cole, Raffello Degruttola. (R, 98 mins) There's a few moments of inspiration for an overqualified cast in this mostly generic terrorism/spy thriller that's been gathering dust on a shelf since it was shot back in late 2014. It was in development long before that, as Peter O'Brien's script was kicking around Hollywood as far back as 2008. There's been some updates to the story, including an overdubbed line by a minor character referencing the 2015 Paris terror attacks, which took place long after the movie was completed. Though its concerns remains topical, UNLOCKED still plays like the kind of hot-button, post-9/11 thriller that would've been more timely in 2007 instead of 2017. Living in London and suffering from PTSD after a 2012 terrorist attack in Paris for which she still blames herself for not preventing, reassigned CIA interrogator Alice Racine (Noomi Rapace) is pulled back in when UK-based CIA agents uncover a potential biological terror plot engineered by David Mercer (Michael Epp), a rich kid from Bloomfield Hills, MI who was radicalized by the teachings of ISIS-like extremist Yazid Khaleel (Makram J. Khoury) and now recruits disillusioned teenagers throughout Europe for his cause. One such kid is Lateef (Ayman Hamdouchi), a 19-year-old Afghanistan-born British national and Khaleel courier. Lateef is apprehended by the CIA and when their London-based interrogator is found floating face down in a hotel swimming pool, Alice is ordered back on duty. Things go south when a phone call from an old colleague midway through the interrogation--informing her that she'll be needed to interrogate a 19-year-old British national named Lateef--immediately tips her off that she's been tricked by traitorous agents who have breached CIA security.
Alice manages to escape and meets with her former mentor Eric Lasch (Michael Douglas as more or less the same character he played in Steven Soderbergh's HAYWIRE), who directs her to a safe house and is immediately killed for his trouble by the same crew of CIA impostors. At the safe house, she interrupts what she thinks is a burglar but is really covert ops agent and neck tat enthusiast Jack Alcott (Orlando Bloom), an Iraq War vet now doing dirty work for the CIA in London. It's double and triple crosses and increasingly nonsensical twists and turns from then on, with high-ranking CIA honcho Bob Hunter (John Malkovich) running point from Langley and MI-5 agent Emily Knowles (Toni Collette, looking like a dead ringer for Annie Lennox) working with Alice in London for a race against the clock to stop a bio-terror attack on an American college football game being played at Wembley Stadium in what amounts to a blimp-less version of John Frankenheimer's BLACK SUNDAY. Developments grow more preposterous as the story goes on as UNLOCKED thinks it's got some tricks up its sleeve, but any savvy moviegoer can probably figure out that Michael Douglas wouldn't be hired to play two brief scenes and get killed off 25 minutes in and that maybe--just maybe--he might turn up later in a plot twist that's telegraphed the moment Alice goes to him for help and he immediately excuses himself to another room for a good minute and we don't see what he's doing and then bad guys show up two minutes later.
UNLOCKED was directed by Michael Apted, the incredibly prolific British filmmaker behind the every-seven-years UP series of documentaries that's been going since 1964 (63 UP should be coming in 2019 if he stays on schedule). With a career currently in its sixth decade, the 76-year-old director's magnum opus is certainly the UP series, but he also pays the bills by being the J. Lee Thompson of his generation, dabbling in nearly every genre imaginable, with credits ranging from biopics like COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER and GORILLAS IN THE MIST to '90s thrillers like CLASS ACTION, BLINK and EXTREME MEASURES to Jodie Foster in NELL and Jennifer Lopez in ENOUGH to documentaries like Sting's BRING ON THE NIGHT and the Leonard Peltier chronicle INCIDENT AT OGLALA, and even big-budget franchise fare like the 007 outing THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and the third CHRONICLES OF NARNIA film. UNLOCKED is Apted's first narrative feature since 2012's CHASING MAVERICKS, for which he shared directing credit after taking over for an ailing Curtis Hanson, and in the meantime, he's been working mostly in TV on shows like RAY DONOVAN, MASTERS OF SEX, and BLOODLINE. He brings a journeyman's sense of efficiency to UNLOCKED by keeping it moving so briskly that you hopefully won't question how needlessly convoluted or cliched it is and just roll with it (yes, Bloom tells Rapace "I'm thinkin' I'm the only friend you've got," and Douglas is heard at one point declaring that he's "getting too old for this shit"). There's a few things worthy of praise--despite the clumsiness of Douglas' reappearance that will surprise absolutely no one, and at least two other characters presumed dead but magically returning later, Apted does play with the audience in a Samuel L. Jackson-in-DEEP BLUE SEA kind of way by suddenly eliminating another major character out of nowhere, and it almost constitutes a twist when that person doesn't turn up again later. Malkovich is basically on hand to Malkovich it up to his heart's content, introduced bitching to his underlings that he's been called into the office on his anniversary and later middle-finger ad-libbing on a Skype chat with Collette's character when she isn't looking (this really does look like something Malkovich came up with and Apted let him run with it). And Rapace continues her string of committed performances after being the only good thing about the sci-fi thriller RUPTURE and playing seven different roles in this entertaining Netflix original WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY. After the already somewhat forgotten PROMETHEUS (does anyone talk about that anymore?), Rapace has very quietly made her case to be a major female action star, but who knows if anyone's paying attention?
Directed by Michael Apted. Written by Leon Griffiths. Cast: Stacy Keach, David Hemmings, Edward Fox, Stephen Boyd, Freddie Starr, Carol White, Hilary Gasson, Stewart Harwood, Alan Ford, Roy Marsden. (Unrated, 107 mins)
This seedy, scuzzy British crime thriller has attained a small cult over the
years but is still a largely forgotten obscurity. An early directorial effort by busy journeyman Michael Apted, then earning a name for himself with his UP documentaries, THE SQUEEZE was a late but no less effective entry in the post-GET CARTER (1971) subgenre of unrepentant UK criminal nastiness typified by the likes of VILLAIN (1971) and SITTING TARGET (1972), coated in sleazy grime, with an unusual cast,
and a jarringly effective, synthy score by David Hentschel that wouldn't sound
out of place in a giallo.
Alcoholic, disgraced ex-Scotland Yard cop
Naboth (Stacy Keach, pulling off a convincing British accent) has just gotten
out of rehab and promptly goes to the nearest pub. Toying with his buddy Teddy's
(British TV comic/singer Freddie Starr, currently embroiled in the BBC/Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal) idea of becoming a private eye, Naboth
almost instantly finds a job when his ex-wife Jill (Carol White) and her
daughter by her new husband Robert (Edward Fox)--she left Naboth and shows
little interest in being a mother to their two sons--are kidnapped and Robert,
who owns a successful armored car company, is expected to pay the ransom. Head
kidnapper Keith (David Hemmings), who was once arrested by Naboth and is none too
happy to hear news of him poking his nose into this matter, orders
Robert to kill Naboth. Also involved is Keith's boss, Irish mob kingpin and
pornographer Vic (Stephen Boyd), a thuggish sadist with a mean streak.
Other than the one-sheet above, there's little evidence of Warner Bros. releasing this in US theaters (it was issued on VHS in 1987 and aired in what had to be a drastically cut version on CBS in 1988), and the Warner Archive
DVD issued in 2010 doesn't carry a rating, but THE SQUEEZE is a pretty hard R even by today's
standards. Keach, in a strange phase of his career that saw his early 1970s critical acclaim in films like END OF THE ROAD (1970), BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970), THE NEW CENTURIONS (1972), and FAT CITY (1972) give way to appearances in films as varied as the Cheech & Chong comedy UP IN SMOKE, the Italian cannibal gorefest MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (both in 1978), and William Peter Blatty's THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980), which should've gotten him an Oscar nomination had anyone seen the film, turns in a brave performance that's one of his best, looking like
absolute hell and spending much of the film soaked in booze sweats when he isn't
letting it all hang out Harvey Keitel-style, even going full frontal in a scene where
Boyd makes him strip at gunpoint. There's also some copious bloodletting late in
the film, and a skin-crawling bit where Hemmings forces White to do an uncomfortable, almost too-painful-to-watch striptease
for him and his goons to the tune of The Stylistics' "You Make Me Feel Brand New."
Keach is given strong support by Hemmings, Fox, Starr, and White, but Boyd in
particular, is terrific. In a major career slump at the time, Boyd, best known as Messala in BEN-HUR (1959), could've had a serious comeback with THE SQUEEZE, but he died of a
heart attack on a Northridge, CA golf course before it was released. He was just 45 years old. He did one more film after THE SQUEEZE
wrapped, playing Dracula in LADY DRACULA, a German sexploitation spoof, which
pretty much represents the type of work he was getting at the end of his career. Before his sudden passing, he was set to co-star with Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, and Hardy Kruger in the action epic THE WILD GEESE, but was replaced by Jack Watson. It's best for Boyd if we
just pretend THE SQUEEZE is his last film.
Apted, now 71, had his first big commercial hit three years later with 1980's COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER. Best known for his ambitious and ongoing UP documentaries that began back in 1963 with SEVEN UP (Apted was a research assistant on the film, but eventually took over directing them), where the filmmakers catch up with a group of people every seven years throughout their life, beginning at age seven (56 UP is scheduled for an early 2013 US release), Apted has worked steadily over the last 30 years as a Hollywood journeyman with films as varied as the John Belushi romantic comedy CONTINENTAL DIVIDE (1981), the William Hurt-Lee Marvin thriller GORKY PARK (1983), GORILLAS IN THE MIST (1988), THUNDERHEART (1992), NELL (1994), the 007 outing THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999), the Jennifer Lopez thriller ENOUGH (2001), and co-directing the recent Gerard Butler surfing flop CHASING MAVERICKS (2012), which Apted took over when Curtis Hanson left the project for health reasons.
THE SQUEEZE lags a bit in the
midsection before really driving it home for the intense final showdown between
Naboth and the kidnappers, but it's a practically unknown gem that deserves some more recognition and is worth
seeking out for fans of Keach, Boyd, and uncompromisingly nasty crime
thrillers.
