Gridlocked

Released By: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Released On: June 14, 2016.
Director: Allan Ungar
Cast: Dominic Purcell, Cody Hackman, Danny Glover
Year: 2015
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The Movie:

Brody Walker (Cody Hackman) is a hard-partying celebrity who ends up on the wrong side of the law...again...when he assaults an independent photographer looking for a newsworthy money shot. Walker's PR people run a damage control play in an effort to save his career and keep him insurable by having him plead guilty and enter a diversion program where he'll shadow a law enforcement officer. Enter David Hendrix (Dominic Purcell), a tactical response officer bounced back down to street cop while he's on stress leave after taking a bullet in the belly. Three days in, and they're sick to death of each other; Hendrix can't understand why somebody would piss away the gift of celebrity, and Walker doesn't understand why Hendrix is such a ball-breaking hardass who won't let him fire a gun. It turns out that most cops can't stand Hendrix either, with his habit of busting heads and jamming up holding cells to the soothing sounds of 80's era hip-hop.

After a particularly rough day at the office that results in Walker getting his face punched in, he decides to bury the hatchet and visit Hendrix at home with a universal peacemaker in the form of a six-pack. Hendrix, clad in a tight shirt that emphasizes his giant nipples, isn't very happy to see him at first, slamming the door in his stupid face, but relents after a moment and lets him in. As the two men down a couple of cold ones, they talk and gain a greater understanding of each other, which culminates in hot, sweaty, passionate man-love. No, actually, Hendrix decides that maybe Brody will have a better understanding of what it is to walk in his shoes if he takes him to his former place of work, the Special Response Team's clubhouse.

After introducing Brody to the elderly security guard (Danny Glover) at headquarters, he walks him into a meet and greet with the rest of the team, and Walker gets a taste of life as a tactical man, with combat situations and a whole lot of weapons and smart-alecking. It appears that it's going to be a fine night for firearms, until Brody excuses himself to answer the call of nature; at which point, a whole wack of heavily-armed paramilitary heavies disguised as contractors bluff their way past Danny Glover and take out the building's communication centre with an electromagnetic pulse bomb. With both sides equally armed, it seems like a stupid idea to try to attack Hendrix and his team in their home base, but the bad guys are led by Korver (Stephen Lang) and Ryker (Vinnie Jones), who are lean, mean, and up to the task. Looking like a response to the team's sneaky 911 call, more paramilitary baddies disguised as cops are quickly deployed, and the odds slide into bad guy favour territory as the friendlies start to drop. With time and numbers dwindling, Hendrix needs to find out who these guys are, what they could possibly be after, and if he's going to have to save the life of a prima donna former child actor...or if Brody will be the one to save the day.

Oh, Canada! A Canadian buddy cop flick? Sign me up! Well, hold on a minute. Is Gridlocked worth the time? Well, let's first address the obvious, and that's that Dominic Purcell, who you may know as the guy without tattoos from Prison Break, is basically playing the guy without tattoos from Prison Break if he was a cop, which is to say that this guy has one speed. And that speed doesn't include a dynamic acting ability. Woodenness with dialogue aside, however, he does what he's required to do, which is to look big in tight clothing and kick the shit out of people. The rest of the cast, not taking into account the SRT members who are largely forgettable (though points go for trying to include a Michelle Rodriguez) are pretty great...Stephen Lang and Vinnie Jones are menacing and evil, particularly in their first moments on-screen, and Danny Glover is....well, he's old Danny Glover, and that's perfect for this film. Cody Hackman, with his demeanour and hairstyle will make you want to punch him right in the face, but that's kind of what you're supposed to want. The major flaw in the cast/acting is that for a buddy cop film, Purcell and Hackman have ZERO chemistry together, and attempts at comedy and the one-liners fired off in the face of peril fall flat.

Gridlocked also delivers on action, and lots of it, with countless bullets fired, explosions galore, and even a nifty artery-spraying stabbing that definitely caught me off guard. The editing is tight, but not too tight where you can't see anything but a blur, but there's SO much of it, it becomes apparent that this one could've used a bit more tighter editing in the scenes surrounding the action. For most of the running time, the film bounces around with not much purpose, then lays so heavily into the violence...and then backs off...and then back in again...by the time we get to the reason that the villains have chosen to assault the SRT headquarters, nobody cares. At 1 hour and 53 minutes, Gridlocked overstays it's welcome, and would definitely benefit from having 20-30 minutes lopped off of it. Still, for new Director/Writer Allan Ungar, it's at least a step in the right direction.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Gridlocked comes to Magnolia Blu-ray in an AVC-encoded 2.39:1 transfer that looks swell, with detail and clarity about what we would expect from a modern film. Black levels are good, dimly lit scenes don't get murky, and there aren't any issues with visual distractions. The English 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio track is decent as well, with liberal use of the surrounds and LFE...you need that for those sweeping bass drops...and the soundtrack puts the viewer in the centre of the action during the lengthy gun battles. Dialogue is clear and center for the most part, with no distortion or other issues.

English SDH and Spanish subtitles are provided.

First up for extra features are 8 Deleted Scenes (11:34), followed by a Blooper Reel (6:03) that you may or may not actually find funny.

Kicking It Old School: The Making of Gridlocked (15:53) finds Purcell and other cast members, as well as Director Allan Ungar in on-set interviews, discussing the characters in the film, their motivations and inspirations, and the merging of old school genres, interspersed with clips from the film.

Inside the Action (6:40) seems to be taken from the same reel of interviews, but focuses more on the action in the film and the training and physicality involved.

Finally, there is a promo reel for Magnolia Home Entertainment.

The Final Word:

It's got some character flaws and is way longer than it needs to be, but if you brush the dust away, you'll find some real potential in Gridlocked.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!