This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

"Brodie Walker" (Cody Hackman) is a spoiled movie star who keeps getting into trouble with the law to the extent that it is seriously affecting his ability to acquire any new roles in the film industry. "David Hendrix" (Dominic Purcell) is the leader of a SWAT team who was injured on duty and has to get medical approval in order to return to duty. So while working for the police department doing various tasks he gets assigned one particular job that nobody would voluntarily accept—having to escort Brodie Walker on patrol while he is serving on a court-appointed referral program designed to test his ability to stay out of trouble. As if this wasn't bad enough some dangerous criminals decide to raid the SWAT training site which happens to have some valuable bonds being held there in a secret storage room. And these criminals have thought of everything—or at least that is what they believe. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a pretty good action film which, unfortunately, suffered from too many unrealistic scenarios to be taken seriously. But that's Hollywood I suppose. Still, if a person is interested in action simply for the sake of action then I suppose this film is as good as anything else in that category. Average.

"Gridlocked" is a watchable and mildly entertaining bromance/action film. Dominic Purcell's martial arts scenes are well executed and adequately choreographed. Stephen Lang does as well as can be expected with the lines that he's given. Cody Hackman plays a young actor with impulse control issues, but can't seem to decide whether to channel Robert Downey Jr. or Justin Bieber. In general, the performances fall a bit short of exemplary. One of the more memorable dramatic performance is delivered by an uncredited extra in a secretarial role who takes some documents and walks away without a word of dialogue. The bit of business has nothing to do with the plot, but she performs it convincingly, which cannot always be said for the rest of the cast. One significant shortcoming is a problem with which many males in its presumptive target audience can relate, a shortage of females. There are two female newscasters, one policewoman who claims to be a lesbian but may be involved with a male character, an old lady, a psychologist who speaks to a character over the telephone and an unidentified woman shown in a still image. Consequently, there is no heterosexual love interest to counterbalance the bromance. While diversity for its own sake generally detracts from a film, this film seems a bit unreal for its lack. There are a few black criminals in an early scene and Danny Glover milks a supporting role. There's a Jewish guy in a stereotypical role. Otherwise, it seems very male and very WASP-ish. For a low-budget actioner, it's entertaining enough. Some scenes seem derivative of "Die Hard 2," "Assault on Precinct 13," "Now You See Me" and other films. The acting isn't inspired, but isn't terrible. The plot is familiar and a bit contrived. Costumes, sets and such betray noticeable compromises to meet budgetary constraints. The entire film seems to have been shot without using a single tripod or other rigid mounting system, although the SteadiCam operator managed to keep the jiggle to a minimum. As a low-budget direct-to- video effort, it's a little better than average.

As with the video generation before it companies releasing DVDs straight to video has created a niche market for various stars. These stars have name recognition for some but perhaps not the majority of moviegoers. That's a shame because many of them deserve better than they're getting, some doing better work in small budget films than many major stars.One such actor is Dominic Purcell. His first major break that I was aware of was as the main nemesis of Wesley Snipes in BLADE: TRINITY. A year later he became more recognizable as Lincoln Burrows in the now famous TV series PRISON BREAK. More recently he's starred in the new CW series DC LEGENDS OF TOMORROW. But in between these items he's starred in a number of low budget action films and done a great job in each. Why he's not making a bigger splash is beyond me.This week Purcell arrives in GRIDLOCKED. He plays David Hendrix, a SWAT team leader demoted to street cop and not pleased with that position. Worse yet he is now saddled with a temperamental bad boy young actor on probation after punching a member of the paparazzi. Brody Walker (Cody Hackman) is a stereotypical character here, the obnoxious brat styled young actor who had fame to fast and abuses it at every chance he can. As he tags along with Hendrix he wants to know more about when he can shoot a gun rather than take something useful back from their time spent together.Hendrix is no piece of cake either. Resentful of being stuck with Walker he does everything he can to ignore him. That is until one night when Walker shows up at Hendrix' apartment, six pack in hand and tries to call a truce. Hendrix breaks down a bit and takes him to the training facility for SWAT to show him what their real world is like.Unfortunately they've picked a bad night to do so. While Hendrix and his old squad are in the midst of an exercise, their own Hogan's Alley test area, a team of mercenaries takes out the power and ignites an EMP cutting off any and all access to phones. As a gun battle follows the old guard at the facility Sully (Danny Glover) is shot and reveals to Hendrix what this group might be after. As the two teams go head to head, skirmish after skirmish the leader of the group is revealed, someone who has bad blood with Hendrix. Just who will survive this night remains to be seen.Where the plot line of the spoiled and incompetent movie star partnered with a tough as nails cop has been done before the best thing about it here is that it's used to put the ball in motion but isn't the centerpiece of the film. That makes it work so much better than expected. Instead the writers and director have chosen to make the film about the assault on the training facility filled with enough backstory to make it believable and involving.Purcell's character fits his appearance and skills as an actor. He's an imposing figure to look at with a tough as nails attitude that oozes from every pore in each scene he's in. And yet there are moments when with just a subtle adjustment of body language or quick smile you can see there is more to Hendrix than meets the eye. That's the sign of a good actor.Perhaps the weakest character here is Brody. Hackman doesn't have the chops yet to pull off this character even though he gives it a decent try. As written the character is far too clichéd and it would take someone with more skill to pull this off. Even Michael J. Fox in THE HARD WAY (1991) wasn't able to quite achieve it. When I read that Hackman was a five time karate champion before going into film I wondered why those skills were never used here. It might have made for a more interesting character.The movie offers some great fight sequences, some over the top gun battles and a plot that may have a few holes in it but not enough to make it unenjoyable. The rest of the cast does a great job in their roles and for being a film on the low budget end every penny shows on the screen. I've seen bigger budget films in the past year with more major special effects that haven't compared to this one. So if you're in the mood for a solid action film that will keep you involved from start to finish then give this one a shot. And keep in mind that Dominic Purcell is far better than the roles he's been getting.

How to describe Gridlocked? It's a mix of Die Hard, Assault on Precinct 13 and The Hard Way. Now before you get all excited and happy you need to know one thing. It's bad. Real bad. And not the Michael Jackson or the so bad it becomes good kind.Gridlocked strips down the movies it's inspired by removing all the elements that make it fun to watch in the first place. It's incredibly basic and minimal and it makes you wonder what they were going for. There is not even that much action until very late into the film. But chances are you will be bored to death long before that. It is quite sad that Dominic Purcell has been reduced to B stardom like this since he is capable of doing more. If you don't believe me then go track down a little show called John Doe and then come back to me. But for what it's worth his no nonsense hard boiled cop suits the movie just fine. It's even more tragic for Stephen Lang and Danny Glover since they are completely wasted in their roles and they obviously are only there to collect a pay check. I would have appreciated it if they had hammed up their performances like Nicolas Cage or offered something nice to chew on. Yes I got the "I am too old for this..." joke. It only reminded me of a vastly superior franchise that once was. Speaking of comedy. I read some comments and reviews where they kept saying how funny the film was. Take my word for it that above Lethal Weapon reference / joke was the funniest bit in the whole damn movie. Well, maybe another one in a scene during the credits. Most of the time every event is taken and played out very seriously and most characters are uninteresting and lifeless. All that is left is the action which is adequately choreographed but nothing else. No attempt has been made to make the action intense and enjoyable. It just action for the sake of action without thrills, excitement and style. Then what is the point? I have given this a fair shot and believe me that was quite tasking since I had to fight sleep throughout the film. But there are no redeeming factors whatsoever making this action flick a giant waste of your time. So stay clear!