Lockout

Donning a T-shirt that reads “Warning: Offensive,” Guy Pearce stars as a government agent who, in action terms, plays by his own rules—or at least the rules of Harrison Ford as Han Solo, or Kurt Russell as John Wayne as Snake Plissken. A reluctant hero of the cynical, wisecracking kind, Pearce stands falsely accused of conspiracy to commit espionage, but a revolt at a Supermax prison in outer space gives him an opportunity to redeem himself. Because the outer-space-prison hook isn’t pulpy enough, the powers-that-be send Pearce on a mission to rescue the daughter-in-chief (Maggie Grace), an entitled yet feisty Princess Leia-type who the prisoners are holding for ransom.

Everything about Lockout is patently absurd, starting with a facility so costly and inefficient that it might as well have sharks in astronaut helmets patrolling the perimeter. Pearce’s directive is also far-fetched, because it requires him to break into the prison, dodge a gauntlet of rebel thugs and inmates off their meds, slip away with a high-value hostage, and break for the nearest pod out of there. But Besson and his writer-director team, James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, are comfortable with the “impossible” side of their mission impossible. They humbly suggest the audience keep its disbelief suspended like Neil Armstrong’s sack. More than any masculine heroics, Pearce’s primary job is maintaining the tone: smug, irreverent, and giddily punch-drunk.