“Locked Down” (M) **

COVID-19 is responsible for more than the mere pandemic currently blighting the planet. It was inevitable that people would make movies about it. I don’t know whether this comedy-crime-thriller movie leads the pack. 

Linda (Anne Hathaway) and Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) share an apartment in London. Linda is a marketing high-flyer. On pandemic furlough from his proper job, Paxton drives a delivery van. Were it not for the lockdown now in force, they’d have gone their separate ways. 

Most people may know that Harrods may well be the biggest shop on the planet, as well as its most expensive. Marketing colossus Harrods allowed filmmaker Doug Liman to shoot a crime story involving the theft of a very big diamond on display in one of its fish tanks.

The heist forms the latter part of “Locked Down”, preceded by days of garrulous interaction between Linda and Paxton that needs resolution. Linda knows about the diamond. Linda persuades Paxton to co-operate in the heist. Have they gotten away with the genuine stone? Or was the gem on exhibit a fake while the real one was in safe deposit?

The tension level rises a little during the heist sequence. But overall, the result of Steven Knight’s screenplay as Liman visualised it is as much a promo for Harrods as anything else. 

At Dendy, Hoyts and Limelight