Locked Down (2010)

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Mixed Marshal Arts sure did explode quickly.  I remember first seeing it on youtube a few years ago and being surprised at how few rules there were.  Though after seeing two or three matches, and realizing that 90% of them turned into a sweaty muscle man hugging match on the floor, I swiftly lost interest.  I didn't expect much from this one to begin with.  It has been sort of a dry spell on movie releases lately, so I'm grabbing whatever I can get, and this just happened to be in the new release pile. 

Locked Down's primary character is a cop who is famous for getting hardcore crime bosses around the nation thrown into prison.  One day, he wakes up (after a 10 minute soft core porn style sex scene, wtf?) and is greeted by a swat team who quickly locate a stash of drugs and cash planted under his sheets. Due to some strings pulling by a "mysterious and unknown source", he ends up in the same prison as all of his best criminal buddies.  As is the norm with any movie involving the Mafia, every other cop on the force is corrupt, so no one bothers to question any of this in the slightest.  Fast forward and he is cage fighting in the basement of the prison hosted by a crime boss controlling the entire place from his master bedroom sized luxury jail cell.

There are a lot of things about this movie that are just straight up corny.  The prison guards are some of the least intimidating officers I have ever seen, including a tiny Asian woman with a nasty attitude, and a wanna-be sadist who bombards everyone with awful one liners throughout the entire movie. The main character doesn't talk much, but when he does, it sounds forced and unnatural.  Luckily most of the other characters do a pretty good job when it comes to acting.  The fighting is well done, aside from some ridiculous bone cracking sound effects.  At least they aren't making out on the floor the whole time like real MMA fights. 

For a straight to dvd movie, this one isn't terrible.  If you can get over the cornyness, the whole rocky style revenge/training thing can be entertaining.  The bad acting and lame dialogue hurt the movie, but don't completely kill it.  It's just average.

Locked Down gets a 3/5 for being the perfect example of straight to dvd.

Release Dates
Blockbuster: November. 9
Red Box: (Not Carried)

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