Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action, sci-fi,
thriller film from 2012, titled Lockout. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
The year is 2079. Our protagonist, former CIA agent Snow, is being
interrogated at a prison in Washington DC by Secret Service director Scott Langral.
Langral wants to know what happened in that room in New York with the colonel,
but every time he asks, Snow replies with a joke, earning him many punches from an officer.
We then get a flashback: it's Snow in a motel room, being choked by a mysterious man.
Since Snow keeps trying to fight back, the man pushes him onto the table, where we see Snow's
phone getting a call from his friend Mace. Snow headbutts the man to get him off him,
but quickly turns around to continue the fight. Both men push and punch around the room until Snow
manages to steal a gun and shoots the attacker, who falls to the floor next to two other bodies.
Snow finally picks up his phone - Mace tells him he's been double-crossed and he needs to get out
immediately. He crouches next to the body of the colonel, who hands him his lighter and asks him
not to let them take "this". Snow looks at the briefcase lying on the floor nearby and
says it's ok before the colonel passes away. Then Snow moves to pick up the briefcase, but
various noises and lights alert him the police has arrived. After tricking the cops with a mattress,
Snow hits them and leaves the room to get to the roof where he has no other choice but to jump.
He hits the ground and the briefcase lands right next to him; he grabs it and starts running away
just as the police catch up with him. Suddenly he comes across a bike that he doesn't hesitate to
steal. Now the chasing has moved to the highway, where Mace calls Snow to tell him to meet him on
the subway and asks him to drop the phone since they're using it to track him. Snow does exactly
that right as the helicopter that followed him explodes. When the subway station comes into view,
Snow just keeps driving the bike inside and jumps off it before the bike falls on the rails.
He runs through the station and makes it to platform ten just as the train is about to leave,
so he throws the briefcase through to doors right before they close for his buddy Mace to catch.
The cops use that moment to capture him. We return to the present then, where Snow is
finishing telling his story. Langral mentions they had the colonel under surveillance because he had
been selling secrets about the space programs, but as far as Snow knows, the colonel had been
protecting them. Langral accuses Snow of having killed the colonel, and when Snow denies it,
he shows him a very short clip of the motel room: Snow is shooting a gun right behind
the colonel and the colonel falls to the floor, hurt. Snow says that's not what happened, but
Labral replies he saw it with his own eyes. More questions keep coming, which Snow still refuses
to answer as a new officer enters the room: Harry Shaw. Shaw changes places with Langral and offers
his help, Snow asks him to pick something up for him that he last saw on the train.
Another flashback begins and we see Mace get off the train, followed by a visit to the station
lockers where he hides the briefcase. When a cop finds the keycard he forgot on the lock,
he walks away anxiously and bumps into another person, making him drop his gun which goes
off on the floor and hurts a cop. A different officer shoots Mace in return and captures him.
Back in the interrogation room, Shaw asks Snow who was his backup guy.
Snow says aloud that he won't tell because Shaw would take it to his boss, but on the table, using
cigarette ash, he writes down Mace's name. Shaw ends the conversation after cleaning the ash off.
We cut to the First Daughter, Emilie Warnock, who is in a spaceship flying through orbit,
together with her bodyguard Hock and her aide Kathryn. There are also police officers traveling
with them, including prison warden Barnes, who offers a quick briefing. The group is
about to visit the MS One, a maximum-security space penitentiary that has been tested on 500
prisoners without incidents. Once they're properly open for business, they'll be able to rent space
to five hundred thousand criminals with all countries signed up but overseen by the US.
Barnes explains the MS One is the only prison in existence without abuse or riots because
they put the prisoners to sleep, and that's what worries Emilie. There had been reports
of the after-effects the stasis leaves on the mind, like dementia, but Barnes says
the press made it all up. He also explains that the defense system is automatic and well-armed.
They make it inside then. After the visitors are put through the standard procedure,
they take the elevator to the third floor. Emilie asks Barnes if the real purpose of
this prison is to test the effects of deep space exploration on humans, Barnes says
he's just an employee and doesn't know anything. Barnes takes the visitors to see the prisoners
sleeping in their stasis capsules and informs them they've prepared an interview room for them,
but they can't take weapons there. Hock keeps one hidden under his pants anyway. Back on Earth,
Snow is being held at a detention center. Langral visits him to inform him he's been convicted to
the MS One. He's then dragged to the procedure room to be injected with some kind of drug.
Meanwhile, in the MS One, Emilie is introduced to Hydell, a deranged prisoner. She tries to ask him
questions but he won't take her seriously; Hock doesn't like it and to make him behave, he pushes
his head on the table. Hydel uses this chance to steal his hidden gun. After pushing Hock away,
he shoots a section of the wall that causes an explosion that hits everyone in the room
and knocks Hock unconscious. Unshaken, Hydel shoots the chains on his ankles
to free himself then goes after Emilie, who is already running out of the room.
He manages to shoot her leg, but she closes a set of doors between them that allows her to escape.
We briefly are shown a different ship belonging to the LOPD, Low Orbit Police Department,
and their alarms are already alerting them of the fire in the MS One. Back to Emilie,
she is entering the control room and telling a scientist to hide before doing so herself.
Hydell enters the room as well and threatens the scientist with his gun, demanding to know where
Emilie is. The scientist is confused and the lack of answer angers Hydell, who throws him on
top of some buttons and accidentally activates the control room. Realizing what this means,
he grabs the scientist and makes him free all the prisoners from their stasis capsules. He
shoots him when it's done then pretends to leave the room, only to surprise Emilie seconds later.
The released prisoners are rioting all over the place. In a particular capsule,
there's Alex, Hydell's brother, who pretends to still be asleep when guards pass by,
only to jump on them from behind, knock them out and steal their weapons. Meanwhile, in
the interrogation room, Hock wakes up and realizes what's happened, so he sends a message to Langral.
Back in the control room, Hydell is grabbing Emilie and putting her on the table to abuse her,
but Alex -who's become the leader of a small band of prisoners- arrives and stops him,
since they'll need as many hostages as possible to negotiate.
At that moment, the LOPD tries to reach out to them through the communication channels, and
Alex realizes they're being approached by police spaceships. Hydell brings another scientist over
to make him activate the security system and he can't stop himself from pressing the big button,
causing the prison ship to fire at the cops. In the meantime, Langral and Shaw are visiting
President Jeff Warnock at the White House again to inform him of what's happening at the MS One.
Warnock worries about his daughter and they tell him they know she's fine thanks to her telemetry,
which is a little machine connected to her body that keeps track of her health.
Langral wants to send special forces, but Shaw first wants to know how to proceed,
because sending in soldiers would equal losing Emilie. He offers an alternate plan: sending
just one man with a very specific order. We cut to Snow then, who is refusing to participate in this
plan to save the president's daughter. But when Shaw secretly tells him Mace is in the prison,
Snow changes his mind and accepts the deal. Shaw returns the colonel's lighter to him as thanks.
In the MS One, all hostages are put together in a room and their IDs are taken by the prisoners.
When Emilie shows signs of being cold, Kathryn hands her
a lab coat that is hanging nearby to wear. Back on Earth, Snow, Langral and Shaw board
a space shuttle and go over the plan. Snow is told about the telemetry and about a scape pod on level
five that he'll use to escape, a map is given to him to find it. He's also given some explosives.
In the prison ship, Alex's hand gets hurt in a fight, so he asks for a doctor. One of his men
goes to the hostage room, where Emilie is having her leg wound bandaged by Kathryn.
Seeing her wearing the coat, he thinks she's a doctor and grabs her to take her to Alex.
Emilie plays along and works on patching him up. Snow, Langral and Shaw make it to the LOPD
spaceship and Langral takes over. An officer tells him Alex has demanded a negotiator.
Langral tries to talk to Alex, but he's hanged up on.
At least they got to see Emilie next to him and since Alex didn't mention her, Snow arrives to the
conclusion that the prisoners don't know she's the president's daughter. The feed is suddenly back on
and Alex appears on the screen, telling them they have a little demonstration: they take Barnes and
release him into space to die. Alex tells the agents there will be another "show" in an hour.
Langral will try to negotiate with the prisoners, Shaw tells Snow he'll go anyway.
While Snow looks for a way in, a cop is sent to the MS One as negotiator. He speaks with Alex
privately and convinces him that releasing at least one hostage is the best way to go.
When Alex accepts, the officer tells him the hostage should be a wounded woman, so Alex chooses
Emilie. Hydell dislikes this idea and since they need a wounded woman, he shoots Kathryn so they
can take her instead, but she dies. At the moment, Snow manages to find a spot to climb onboard,
and he's seen by a prisoner, who warns Alex about this being a set-up. Alex shoots the negotiator
then asks his brother to find Snow and kill him. Shaw guides Snow to safely enter the ship while
Alex, who's found a digital newspaper, finally realizes who Emilie is. At that moment,
she's in an elevator with Hock, being taken back to the hostage room by a prisoner. She
grabs the fire extinguisher from the wall opens it on the prisoner's face. Hock uses the distraction
to attack him, but the prisoner pushes him at the same time as the doors open to reveal Snow.
The prisoner punches Snow, throws him out of the elevator and, after some struggling,
holds him by the neck against the wall. Snow puts the explosives around the man's neck and
blows his head off. Emilie appears then, and she hits him with the fire extinguisher before
running with Hock into a secure, locked room that triggers a nitrogen alert on Emilie's telemitry.
Outside that room, Snow is telling Lanfral and Shaw what happened,
but he needs to hide when Alex and his men suddenly come out of the elevator. They find
the room Emilie has locked herself in, and Alex asks one of his men to bring him two engineers.
Snow sneaks around the ship and finds a computer, where he searches for the place where Mace is
being held at. He's told about Emiele's current oxygen problem, but since the room is secured,
he doesn't know what to do. Outside the secure room, the two engineers arrive.
Alex shoots one of them as an example and tells the other to open the door.
Meanwhile, Snow is crawling through the ships' shafts, unaware a prisoner is following him.
He reaches the torsion system, which creates a gravity that should hold him up.
When he's about to glide over, the prisoner jumps on him, and they fight while floating in the air.
Snow pushes the prisoner off and jumps over to grab the edge of the exit, but the prisoner jumps
on him and hangs onto his leg. Hydell, currently in the control room, sees all this on camera,
so he shoots the controls to turn off the torsion system. Snow shoots the prisoner off him, but with
the gravity off, he's having trouble hanging on. The rope that is holding him breaks and he
starts to go down, but Shaw's men reactivate the torsion and Snow glides out as planned.
In the secured room, Emilie and Hock hear how they're trying to get the door open.
Since the current engineer is failing, Alex shoots him when a new one comes to take his place.
In Emilie's room, oxygen is about to run out, so Hock shoots himself to give her his air.
Snow is still moving through the shafts and finally manages to find the room, which he
enters after blowing up the shaft lid. Emilie is unconscious when he finds her, but he has
a medical kit with him and manages to bring her back by following a LOPD doctor's instructions.
Emilie is shocked when she wakes up and pushes him away. He tells her he's there to help her
and takes her out through the shafts but not without leaving a bomb for Alex and his men,
who enter the room right after they leave. Shaw continues to guide Snow and Emilie through
the shafts, but now his voice is heard by the prisoners as well. Alex is brought a communicator
officer, who is ordered to cut transmissions. Without Shaw's guidance, Snow and Emilie take
a wrong turn and fall through the ceiling into a random room, but they quickly find their way into
an infirmary. While tending Emilie's wound, Snow tells her the president sent him, and when she
asks about the other hostages, he tells her he's there to save only her. Since they want different
things, Snow gives her the map and a gun and sends her to save the hostages on her own,
but Emilie doesn't know much about following directions in a spaceship. At that moment,
Alex appears on all the screens of the ship, showing the picture of Emilie's ID and asking
everyone to capture her if they see her. Snow takes pity on her and makes her join him again.
They enter a supplies room and Snow gives Emilie a prisoner uniform to change into, then cuts and
dyes her hair by force. He also gives her a hat and punches her face to make a scar.
In the LOPD ship, Langral is talking to Alex, who tells him he now knows who Emilie is and
they'll hurt her if they don't get what they want. The president arrives a few hours later.
After changing into a prisoner uniform too, Snow takes Emilie into the main containment area. At
first they walk among the prisoners without calling anyone's attention, but eventually,
they make it to an area where they need a password to pass, which they obviously don't know. Snow
solves this by hitting the prisoner then running away. The men chase them, and he shoots at them,
but Emilie is stuck at a jammed door. He makes her shoot instead while he forces the door to open,
finding Mace on the other side. They run together into another room that they lock up,
and Snow hugs Mace only to find out he's repeating random, senseless words. Emilie tells him he has
dementia because of the stasis. When Mace is asked about the briefcase, he just says more nonsense.
When they hear Alex and his men use a special tool to open the door, they start running away. Alex
almost catches them when he hears a noise, but only finds the alarm they left behind.
At that moment, the MS One is starting to lose control and hits the International Space Station.
The collision causes a hull breach, separating Mace from the others. Snow tries to make him
press the panic button, but Mace can't understand him, so he leaves to search for something to open
the door with. Emilie listens to more nonsense words before he returns, but opening the doors
is impossible and Mace is frozen to death. Back in the LOPD ship, Langral is told that
the MS One will collide on Earth in around six hours, so he decides to call the Department of
Justice with a plan. Meanwhile, Snow and Emilie finally make it to the pod room, where they see
government ships approaching them, but not to rescue them. The pod they find only has one seat,
Snow lies to Emilie and tells him he'll use another one to make her escape. The pod takes off,
but Emilie appears behind Snow moments later. She thinks her father won't authorize an attack
if she's still on the ship, she still wants to protect the hostages. Snow doesn't want to help,
and Emilie changes his mind by pretending Mace told her where the briefcase is.
Hydell appears on the ship screens then and says he will shoot a hostage every three seconds if
Emilie doesn't give him her location. Emilie does so, but Hydell kills all the hostages anyway. Snow
drags her into the elevator to get away, Emilie confesses she doesn't know where the briefcase is.
The elevator gets stuck between floors and Snow forces the doors open, they jump into a
room where they find proof prisoners are being used as guinea pigs, only to be found by Alex
and his men. Snow tries to defend himself, but a shot pushes him into the shafts. Alex takes
Emilie back with him to the control room. In the shaft, Snow is woken up by Shaw talking to
him through a secure channel, he asks about Mace before giving Snow instructions on how to escape.
In the control room, Alex is talking to Langral, who threatens with an attack. Alex tells Emilie to
ask her dad to cancel the attack, but Emilie tells him they should blow up the entire prison instead.
In the LOPD ship, the president refuses to send the attack, so Langral relieves him of his duties,
which the constitution allows when the president won't put national security above personal
concerns. Langral authorizes the attack then. Alex and Hydell see the incoming ships and they
start arguing, Hydell stabs his brother before going after Emilie, but Snow arrives just in
time to save her, knocking Hydell out. While the MS One is under fire from the security force ships
and with prisoners chasing them, Snow takes Emilie to the room Shaw told him about. They
lock the door behind them then proceed to put on special space suits and jump off the ship
right before it explodes. The force of the explosion gives them the push they need to
land on Earth where they're found by the police - Emilie is rescued. Snow gets arrested again.
Days later, Emilie is on her hospital bed when a quote on her tablet makes have a realization.
She escapes the place while remembering the last words Mace told her: he did tell her where the
briefcase is. She reaches the station and decodes the hidden number in Mace's words, which allows
her to open the right locker and finally retrieve the briefcase. She also visits the motel room and
we learned what truly happened that day: Snow shot at the same time a hidden intruder shot the
colonel, and to Langral, who was watching from a neighbor roof, it looked like Snow did it.
Emilie takes the briefcase to the president and tells him to do something.
We cut to the detention center, where Shaw is visiting Snow. A cop brings the briefcase to
Snow to show to Shaw, and explains the colonel wasn't selling secrets, he was returning them.
Shaw opens the briefcase and finds it empty, Snow points out it's weird he knew the combination.
Shaw turns out to be a paid rat, and Langral is here to arrest him.
Snow uses the colonel's lighter to give Shaw the rat mark before he's taken away.
Proven innocent, Snow leaves the precinct and tries to light a cigarette. It's then he discovers
a secret SD card on the lighter, which was the real object the colonel wanted him to protect.
Suddenly Emilie approaches and tells him she's learned his name is Marion.
After punching him as payback, they leave the place together, bantering and teasing each other.