good gods, does locked down start off on a bad note. doug limon's dark romantic heist dramedy (wow is that a mouthful) spends its first 20 minutes or so being interminable to watch, as we're introduced to the malaise-inflicted paxton (chiwetel ejiofor) and his former partner, conflicted ceo linda (anne hathaway), who are stuck on lockdown in england during the pandemic. there's not an inch of joy in this opening act as these two self-absorbed characters mope and act annoyed around each other amid the start of the pandemic. then something happens. linda, upon having to fire several people over zoom, flips her shit. she goes on an extended rant to paxton and somehow, hathaway singlehandedly starts to turn this around. sadly, the film never reaches those bizarre and inspired heights again. it does even out, and there are some great moments here and there scattered within this whole thing. a gag about edgar allen poe is consistently funny and hathaway and ejiofor do make a couple with chemistry when they get chance to spark off each other. but there's too much here that just seems overlaid with the same kind of ennui that the pandemic has been full of, and the film only gets out of first gear in those inspired moments which don't come often enough. maybe this is a film that will look better in five years' time; i could definitely see that happening. for now though, locked down is probably not quite worth the couple of hours spend watching it. (side note: if you want to watch a pandemic movie with bite, i suggest host.