In Chicago's Blackwater state penitentiary (not to be confused with the covert ops organization), mob boss Anton Vargas (Jones), rules the roost. Everyone is on his payroll, including the warden and the guards. He runs Punchfighting matches in the basement of the prison. Meanwhile, undercover cop on the edge Det. Danny Bolan (Schiena) is involved in a drug bust gone wrong where he's framed and mistakenly sent to Blackwater. While inside, he faces off against Vargas and his Punchfighting minions in order to survive. That includes criminals he himself put in jail.

This modern-day Punchighter is another 90-minute commercial for the TapouT brand. While Circle of Pain (2010) has more TapouT product placement than Locked Down, still, somehow, inmates in a maximum security prison have have TapouT shirts and hats.

These TapouT ( we feel very silly adding that last capital T, just so you know) productions always manage to get one B-list name - in Circle of Pain it was Dean Cain, Beatdown (2010) has Danny Trejo, and here we have Vinnie Jones. He is underused as the baddie, and this role doesn't let him live up to his full potential. He wears the same outfit the whole movie and doesn't say that much. As for Kimbo Slice, the filmmakers tacked on some unrelated plot about him fighting people in Florida. The word "shoehorned" comes to mind here. Tony Schiena is such a meatheady dolt - more than usual - I didn't recognize him at first.

There are a lot of classic clichés on display: Bolan tells Vargas "we have a lot of history together", the scene where a guard says to the incoming prisoners "this is the end of the line" and "you can't do anything without my say so", and at one point Bolan even says "this might sound clichéd, but my father was a cop...my grandfather was a cop..." Also, Bolan's shrew of a girlfriend whining, telling him he can't a be an undercover cop because she never sees him anymore. The lifer/trainer of the Bolan character, and much more.

Despite some of the negative things we've said so far, Locked Down is really not that bad for a modern-day Punchfighter. These movies hark back to a late 80's/90's style of filmmaking, which is decent, but what ruins that is all the horrible nu-metal music over the top of it all. Tunes such as "Wildfire in the Streets" by Tommy Fields, and other bands such as "Stabbed", "Eject", "Dgat" and others offer their selections as well. The most ridiculous song names a bunch of real-life fighters and how they are all going to, and I quote "pop your hood". What this means exactly is open to interpretation.

As far as the fights, they have all the slow motion and quick cuts you might expect, as well as the choreographed pulled punches, but at least they seem to be TRYING.

Locked Down is worth seeing if you liked Circle of Pain or other TapouT vehicles. It's more of the same.

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In the 80s this might have worked more than fine. But having a lead that does not have the charisma to carry the movie on his shoulder, throwaway female roles (Bai Ling reduced to almost nothing and therefor criminally underused, no pun intended) and other stuff that does not add to make this movie any better.

The fight scenes overall are decent, but not as spectacular as others in similar movies I've seen. And that is a "neck" breaker, because you don't expect much in the story department, but there should be something in the action department. While there are worse movies out there, there are better. Even Vinnie Jones has done better roles and movies ...

MINOR SPOILERS ONLY I clicked the box just in case to avoid any troubles. The spoilers is mainly about Kimbo's Role... Really he is basically just some prison fighting thug in ANOTHER PRISON, yeah you readed right, and he is there basically just to show the main bad guy run his "activities" in many prisons. He is the "king" of the prison over there, do one fight, and except 30 secs of screen time outside that fight, thats about it. From the cover i was expecting him to be the big baddie enforcer(and final fight) of the movie, especially since he got the face for it.

Then you don't even have one single picture of the hero on the cover... not even on the back cover... LOL. As a fighter he was OK, but his acting was indeed not really good, even if he has that deep voice. I saw worst but saw way better. Vinnie Jones is believable in the role of the big bad, he do an OK job. As for the MMA fighters... there basically cannon fodder... Anyway lets say the plot is super classic, yet correct, the fights are decent yet they could had been way better... add some TnA scenes for the young Males, and you have a fighting movie in the "tournament style" that i would call decent yet not impressive.