subxerogravity Remember a movie called the Hard Way? Micheal J Fox plays a pampered movie star who goes on a ride along with a tough as nails New York City cop played by James Woods. Gridlocked is a lot like a remake of that movie.Updating the movie star to having to do the ride along in order to stay out of jail, Broody walker is a child actor trying to be an adult actor, somewhere between Lindsey Lohan and Justin Beiber, and his hard as nails street cop is a lot more tougher than James woods ( a lot bigger too) So this is the movie premise, but the film's plot seems to be a rip off of Die Hard (Like Die Hard in a special police task force armory). It's kinda funny considering Danny Glover plays a security guard in the place, even doing his famous line from Lethal Weapon.Best part of the movie is the great Stephen Lang who plays the antagonist in the film. I've become a huge fan of this man since he played the perfect soldier in Avatar. His purpose in the movie is to be a dark and gritty soulless villain whose purpose out weighs any lives that come across him.Adding to his perfect villain is the just as great Vinnie Jones who complements Lang as his lead henchman.Gridlocked could have been better. I feel it looses track as it tries to bounce back and forth from the Hard Way plot to the Die Hard plot and a few other plots in-between that change the focus on the film.http://cinemagardens.com

lathe-of-heaven This movie was a real blast! So many times films like this are usually pretty disappointing to me, mainly because producers always seem to go out of their way to ruin stories like this with over-the-top 'acting' and artificially pumped up stupidity (does that actually make sense...???)Anyway, one thing that I really liked about the film, in addition to it's great @ss-Kicking all over the place, were the surprisingly intelligent characters and particularly the way the interaction between the two main guys was done. To me, this was by FAR the best performance of Dominic Purcell that I have EVER seen. I frigg'n LOVED 'Prison Break', but his acting was not even CLOSE to a highlight of that series (sorry man...) BUT... in THIS film, I actually felt that he came across far more 'REAL' as a person. I honestly thought that his acting has greatly improved with this role.I also really liked the guy they chose to play the 'Star'; he was absolutely PERFECT! In a role like this, it would be so easy to screw it up by him being over-douchey and stupid. But, I thought that the way that the film makers portrayed him being a punk, but at the same time showing a believable, sympathetic side to him, was nicely balanced.There was also a fair amount of rather clever humour that worked pretty well. So, all in all, I really found the movie to be very entertaining, not so over-the-top that it ruined it either character wise or otherwise. And, the action was pretty good too. All the 'Bullet Ballet' stuff (as another reviewer here mentioned) was done fairly well. Probably the only slight thing that I would mention in my lowly and wretched opinion, and maybe this is just my personal preference, is that SOME of the action I felt was a bit heavy handed with the fast, quick edit stuff. I've never really been a fan of that. It wasn't as bad as many films are in this area where you can't tell what the hell is going on, but for me personally, I think that if they had taken a BIT more of a classic, traditional approach (such as in the Carpenter film) and gone for just a TAD more of a pulled-back, classic, more moodily choreographed approach, just a BIT, and cut down a LITTLE on the tight, fast edited close action, I personally feel that that would have elevated this film almost to cult status.If you wanna be bitchy about it, the last act probably COULD have been tightened up just a bit to give it more punch, but that is just a super MINOR thought, no biggie...I really liked this movie and I personally found it VERY fun and refreshing, especially with all the destructively stupid, extreme crap that Hollywood continually tries to force down our throats. It was most engaging, the characters were intelligent and believable (something NOT usually done very well these days) and the action was great! I genuinely feel that this film does pretty much EXACTLY what it sets out to do, and does it far better than most...

chrichtonsworld How to describe Gridlocked? It's a mix of Die Hard, Assault on Precinct 13 and The Hard Way. Now before you get all excited and happy you need to know one thing. It's bad. Real bad. And not the Michael Jackson or the so bad it becomes good kind.Gridlocked strips down the movies it's inspired by removing all the elements that make it fun to watch in the first place. It's incredibly basic and minimal and it makes you wonder what they were going for. There is not even that much action until very late into the film. But chances are you will be bored to death long before that. It is quite sad that Dominic Purcell has been reduced to B stardom like this since he is capable of doing more. If you don't believe me then go track down a little show called John Doe and then come back to me. But for what it's worth his no nonsense hard boiled cop suits the movie just fine. It's even more tragic for Stephen Lang and Danny Glover since they are completely wasted in their roles and they obviously are only there to collect a pay check. I would have appreciated it if they had hammed up their performances like Nicolas Cage or offered something nice to chew on. Yes I got the "I am too old for this..." joke. It only reminded me of a vastly superior franchise that once was. Speaking of comedy. I read some comments and reviews where they kept saying how funny the film was. Take my word for it that above Lethal Weapon reference / joke was the funniest bit in the whole damn movie. Well, maybe another one in a scene during the credits. Most of the time every event is taken and played out very seriously and most characters are uninteresting and lifeless. All that is left is the action which is adequately choreographed but nothing else. No attempt has been made to make the action intense and enjoyable. It just action for the sake of action without thrills, excitement and style. Then what is the point? I have given this a fair shot and believe me that was quite tasking since I had to fight sleep throughout the film. But there are no redeeming factors whatsoever making this action flick a giant waste of your time. So stay clear!

towerjm80 David Hendrix (Dominic Purcell) is a toughened street cop who has been saddled with spoiled movie star Brody Walker who is serving community service for DUI's. David takes Brody to visit his home base, a protected training facility for the Strategic Response Team. Unknown to them, something of great value is being vaulted inside the facility and their visit is interrupted by a group of mercenaries that lay siege to the building.The film's premise shares some overlap with films like Assault on Precinct 13, it is the action film equivalent of a home invasion thriller; however Gridlocked has a tone and feel that is distinctly its own. This film is a sleek and fast paced actioner that ratchets up the stakes with every scene. Gridlocked only suffers a little when it crosses its core 'protect the building' premise with the buddy cop elements. Cody Hackman's fallen-star character Brody Walker seems strangely divorced from the main action once they come under siege and gets a little lost in the shuffle. It would have been nice to see him more involved and learning from his experience.