Criticism of “Locking” (“Locked”), David Yarvesky’s film with Bill Skarsgård and Anthony Hopkins based on the Argentine film “4×4”

Thursday 08th May 2025 05:58 AM

This remake of Mariano Cohn’s feature film with Peter Lanzani and Dadi Brieva does not add too much, beyond his anti-Woke preaching.

Premiere 05/08/2025

Published on 05/07/2025

Bill Skarsgård in the role that Peter Lanzani did.

Closed (LockedUnited States, Canada, 2025). Address: David Yarvesky. Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins and Ashley Cartwright. Screenplay: Michael Ross, based on the original film by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat Music: Tim Williams. Photography: Michael Daltorre. Distributor: Diamond Films. Duration: 95 minutes. Suitable for over 16 years. Salas: 106.

In 2019, director Mariano Cohn took off from his usual teammate, Gastón Duprat, to direct 4×4 (Here criticism)his first feature film in solitude (the script was both). In that movie there was a kid Chorro (blond dye hair, football shirt, gold chain around the neck), played by Peter Lanzani, who tried to steal a car. He was not an any car, but one that closed hermetically with him inside, thus beginning a long path of psychological torture and suffering infringed by the owner of the vehicle, which commanded the distance devices.

His American remake is called Closed and part of a similar premise. A boy enters an ultra luxury truck to steal an object of value that you can sell, check calmly and even prove glasses. But when Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgård) tries to leave it is already late: the vehicle is sealed, soundproof and its dark glass prevents someone from outside from noticing their anguish. Until a phone sounds on the board. On the other hand, a recognizable voice: that of Anthony Hopkins, who says he is called William, be a doctor, victim of multiple robberies and father of a daughter killed at the door of his house during one of them.

And there is the central heart that the film fails to overcome, because its ethical dilemma deflates as fast as narrative tension. With Hopkins reciting several monologues that explain the sense that we see it, locked up begins as a confinement thriller with series B aesthetics and becomes an anti-woke sermon where poverty is the fault of the poor, and marginality, synonymous with laziness.