Film Review: LOCKED (2025): Anthony Hopkins is Menacing in This Frightening Movie with an Ingenious Plot

Locked Review

Locked (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by David Yarovesky, written by Mariano Cohn, Gaston Duprat and Michael Arlen Ross and starring Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins, Ashley Cartwright, Navid Charkhi, Michael Eklund and Sofia Tesema.

Bill Skarsgård hasn’t prepared properly for his role in director David Yarovesky’s tense thriller, Locked, if you look closely at his previous performances. Skarsgård has usually mostly been part of larger acting ensembles in the past and, now, he gets his own juicy role in a suspense movie that is tightly edited and purposefully frantically paced. This is a part any actor in Hollywood would want to play and Skarsgård nails the role so well that when Anthony Hopkins comes on-screen, one wonders if the great Hopkins will manage to keep up with Skarsgård’s intensity in his own role. Spoiler alert: Hopkins arrives and is great while managing to scare the socks off the viewer by the time the terrific last 15-minutes or so of the film arrive.

Skarsgård plays the role of Eddie Barrish, a deadbeat dad who is behind on child and spousal support payments. When we meet him, he’s trying to get his car fixed but doesn’t have the dough, so he plays scratch-off lottery tickets trying to make up the difference between what he has and what he owes the mechanic. Eddie breaks into the wrong SUV trying to find valuables. Soon, the vehicle locks up on its own and a phone call from a mysterious man comes into the car. Classical music sporadically plays as well until Eddie makes it clear that the guy on the other end of the phone call is a man named William (a phenomenal Anthony Hopkins) who tells Eddie he chose the wrong vehicle to break into. In a funny bit, a lady comes over to the car while Eddie screams, but the vehicle is sound proof and the windows are tinted so the woman simply looks into the mirror to do her lipstick.

Eddie would probably accept the dire fate William has in store for him if Eddie didn’t love his young daughter, Sarah (Ashley Cartwright), but, instead, Eddie puts up quite a fight as he struggles to play William’s game which includes hiding nutrients throughout compartments in the car after he secretly bandages Eddie’s wounds while he is sleeping. Though we hear Hopkins, we don’t see him for a while and this helps masterfully build tension within the film’s story line. You can cut that tension with a knife as Eddie becomes immersed in a sick man’s plan to take vengeance on Eddie for the actions of others who have ruined William’s life.

William is supposedly dying of cancer and hates cursing. So, William literally “shocks” Eddie in his seat whenever he uses profanity to lessen the bad words being said in the car. Eddie says he has “street smarts” although William is quick to point out that’s not necessarily the case. Lest you think that the action all stays in the car parked in the same spot, William gets the car rolling with Eddie in it as William manages to unwillingly kill off some not-so-innocent people who are close by in the neighborhood.

Locked could have been dull in lesser hands but, instead, it’s lean and it’s mean as directed by Yarovesky who doesn’t miss a trick, highlighting the difficulties that Eddie faces while trying to stay alive. Eddie even goes as far as drinking his own urine at one point because William is a monster who won’t see reason unless Eddie goes through a series of deadly obstacles that could kill him before he kills himself. In the interim, William teases Eddie with thoughts of the car running over Sarah with the vehicle which almost literally happens.

This story is powerfully told and one may wonder if Hopkins’ William is a character to be sensitive towards. The bottom line is that William is not only not to be trusted but a really creepy man that could just end up sending Eddie into a hell world which he’ll never escape from. Yes, Hopkins plays a really twisted individual here.

Locked brings in the idea of Eddie sacrificing his life to keep his family safe and introduces the character of William very gradually just like a roller coaster ride going up for the first time before dropping with a vengeance. Eddie is seemingly looking for hope at the beginning, but he has no one in his life right now. There is only one man who could mess him up or be out to get him: This film’s evil lead, William, who becomes jealous of Eddie’s successful ability to break the law on more than a few occasions.

It’s fair to say that Locked is so tense and bone-chilling that mostly all viewers will sympathize with Skarsgård’s unfortunate predicament even if we’re not sure that Eddie has or has not been guilty of all the wrongdoings that William tells Eddie he has been guilty of after making Eddie give him his social security number. There are other sequences that up the ante here, but the way Skarsgård struggles in character while stuck in his car is truly the work of a fine actor. By the time Hopkins appears, it feels like he’s simply the icing on the cake.

Hopkins is in top form here. One can wonder why more isn’t being made of this new picture when considering the quality of Hopkins’ performance. Skarsgård is a flawed hero who viewers will want to side with despite the keen mistakes the character Skarsgård plays has made in his past.

Locked‘s climax and conclusion are real signature cinematic showstoppers and certainly do the actors justice with the plot’s “Do or Die” approach to the material. Locked will keep viewers holding on for dear life as Skarsgård’s Eddie fights to stay alive in order to see and hang out with his daughter again. This is a well-constructed movie that deserves more attention than it has been getting thus far. It is a physically demanding lead turn by Skarsgård that is to be credited for the film’s ultimate success. Hopkins is also working to the top of his abilities here as a psycho killer which doesn’t hurt the film’s cause much either.

Rating: 8/10

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