Film Review: Trunk: Locked In (2024)
A movie that takes place entirely inside the trunk of a car shouldn’t work at all, but somehow director Marc Schießer has managed to make Trunk: Locked In not only watchable but damn near enjoyable too. The story is borderline ridiculous, and the plot, once it gets going, becomes more predictable with each passing moment, but I can’t help but praise Schießer’s attempt and the level of finesse with which he’s pulled off this hairbrained scheme of a film. It may not be the most harrowing thriller you’ve ever seen, but Trunk has its moments, and those moments might be enough.
The plot is so basic that you probably already know what it is, but it plays out better than you might expect. A young woman named Malina (Sina Martens) wakes up groggy in the trunk of a car with no recollection of how she got there. She soon discovers, via her phone’s camera, which miraculously captured part of the incident on video, that she’s been kidnapped and that her boyfriend Enno (Artjom Gilz) is missing. Another miracle provides her with cell service (thank you efficient European infrastructure), which she uses to contact her sister and father, who are both incompetently unhelpful, and an emergency operator named Elisa (Luise Helm).
As she parses out clues and makes inventive improvements to her confined situation, the clock begins to tick away as she and her captor barrel down the road. Along the way, though, we’re treated to some surprisingly intense POV highway shenanigans (cleverly viewed through a busted-out taillight), but also no shortage of groan-worthy story developments you will probably see coming from a mile away (spoiler alert: especially if you’ve ever seen Peter O’Fallon’s 1997 kidnapping drama Suicide Kings).
But, despite its shortcomings, Trunk isn’t half bad — or at least not nearly as bad as it should be. The blunt force MacGyver-ing Malina takes to her situation is fun to watch and dare I say even believable most of the time. And although Martens doesn’t exactly nail her role as the drugged, dazed, and surgically assaulted (yep, you heard me) trapped animal she’s meant to be, she’s no boring damsel in distress either. Through her audio-only phone interactions with Elisa, which provide most of the film’s dialogue, Schießer effectively sells both women’s fortitude and motivations well enough to keep our interests piqued, even if they don’t stay that way for more than a few minutes after the credits have rolled.
