PLEASE RELEASE ME (LOCKED DOWN)

In June, James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan teamed up with Stephen Daldry for a BBC2 COVID pandemic drama 'Together'.

The premise of the Dennis Kelly penned drama was simple.

A couple with a 10 year old son are on the verge of breakup when lockdown strikes.

Despite finding each other increasingly irritating, they decide to bubble up and then suddenly grow close as COVID takes its toll on family, friends and wider society.

By pure coincidence, 'Peaky Blinders' creator Steven Knight and 'Swingers' director Doug Liman also developed a movie 'Locked Down' which was released in cinemas before 'Together' was screened on TV.

The plot is in some respects like Kelly's.

Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor are a couple (without a son) in London who have actually broken up and then COVID strikes, shutting society down.

Forced to bubble together, Linda and Paxton barely tolerate each other and they bicker a lot.

She is a senior executive in a marketing company run by Ben Stiller's odious Guy and conducts meetings over Zoom with her colleagues who include Mark Gatiss's Donald.

Paxton is a delivery truck driver who works for Ben Kingsley's shifty Born Again Christian boss, Malcolm who also Facetimes him.

He is disillusioned with his life, having been limited to delivery jobs because of a previous arrest for assault 10 years earlier.

His co-worker Sam Spruell's Martin holds a grudge against him and when Malcolm arranges Paxton to drive around with false ID, his nemesis gives him the identity Edgar Allan Poe.

Under pressure from Guy, Linda has to make her co-workers redundant over Zoom.

To relieve the boredom of lockdown, Paxton walks out onto their suburban street and recites poetry to the neighbours.

He also stumbles across junkies in his back garden harvesting opium from a bush.

Linda and Paxton eventually find common cause when an opportunity rather improbably arises to steal a diamond from Harrods and they find themselves tearing through London's empty streets and also ransacking the store's luxury food hall.

As well as 'Swingers,' Liman gave us the intoxicating film 'Go' and Matt Damon in 'The Bourne Identity,' so we know he is capable of delivering good work.

Knight directed the compelling car journey movie 'Locke' with Tom Hardy, only to deliver a mess of a film 'Serenity' in 2019 with Hathaway and Matthew McConaghey.

That film was about as believable as Jacob Rees-Mogg singing 'The Internationale' with Billy Bragg.

Unfortunately for Liman and especially Knight, 'Locked Down' is only a smidgeon less insufferable than 'Serenity'.

It isn't just the plot is far fetched, it's completely nonsense.

The dialogue is incredibly smug.

The direction is as lifeless as the germs that were no doubt sterilised on the COVID safety compliant set.

The film is also stuffed full of celebrity cameos in the hope that it will distract its audience from the feeble nature of the plot.

Lucy Boynton, Stephen Merchant, Claes Bang and Mindy Kalling pop up in the hope that somehow their presence is enough to carry the movie along.

It isn't.

'Locked Down' is incredibly boring. 

It's pretentious and it smacks of being a half cooked idea that was rushed into production in a desperate bid to be the first movie about lockdown.

Worst of all for a so-called comedy drama, it's about as funny as athlete's foot.

With a script as lifeless as this, Hathaway and Ejiofor, who on their day can be excellent actors, just flounder.

Although to be fair, none of the cast have much of a chance emerging with any credit.

Watching 'Locked Down' confirms one thing, though.

If you were forced to live with someone you can't stand during lockdown, you could have been living with this lot.

There really is nothing worse than watching the far fetched adventures of two insufferable bores.

('Locked Down' was released in cinemas and on digital streaming platforms in the UK and Ireland on March 5, 2021)