Pandemic heist movie 'Locked Down' is getting panned

Watch: Locked Down trailer

It appears that new pandemic heist movie Locked Down may have failed to effectively mount the zeitgeist.

Despite an all-star cast and a pretty unique premise, the ambitious project – shot entirely during lockdown – is taking a panning at the hands of the critics.

Penned by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, it stars Anne Hathaway, who is forced into lockdown with her husband (Chiwetel Ejiofor) with whom she's just decided to separate.

Read more: Hathaway and Ejiofor team up for pandemic heist movie

The final straw arrives when she's required to fire hundreds of her staff at famous department store Harrods.

So when she's asked to help with the logistics of moving the shop's bewilderingly expensive stock as the pandemic lockdown extends, she decides the time is right to pinch a massive diamond.

Luckily, the heist plans bring the couple, who are verging on a split, closer together (this is not to be considered marital advice).

Despite being directed by Bourne Identity helmsman Doug Liman and co-starring Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Ben Stiller and Ben Kingsley, neither the calibre of the personnel nor the uniqueness of the concept appear to have lived up to expectations.

Read more: Hathaway sorry over disability controversy in The Witches

“It strains to dramatize the emotional emptiness of isolation and, instead, uses it as a facile premise,” notes The New Yorker.

Adds The Atlantic: “While Locked Down is an undoubtedly fascinating pop-culture curio, it's also sloppy and cringe-inducing, and feels like it was made in a hurry.”

Reckons The Daily Beast: “We're desperate for content about the pandemic that is not only about the pandemic, but something more creative. That should've been Locked Down. What a bummer that it's not.”

CNN adds: “Like most shot-under-quarantine productions, it's intriguing for about 30 minutes or so, thanks in part to the charismatic leads. For the next half-hour, most viewers – like their predicament – will probably have seen enough and just want to get out.”

The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a grating stunt”, The New York Times says it “already feels like a relic”, and ABC News' Peter Travers brands it 'a gimmicky dud'.

There is some positivity in there, however.

“Can a movie about the everyday realities of our crushing new normal also be a breezy piece of Hollywood escapism?” asks the LA Times. “At its infrequent best, Locked Down suggests that it can.”

The movie is streaming now on HBO Max in the US, with no release yet confirmed for the UK.