Synopsis
A woman desperately races to save her child after police place her hometown on lockdown due to an active shooter incident.
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Cast
- Naomi WattsAmy Carr
- Colton GobboNoah Carr
- Sierra MaltbyEmily
- Michelle JohnstonHeather
- Woodrow SchrieberDetective Paulson
- David RealeCJ
- Jason ClarkeGreg Minor
- Debra WilsonDedra Wilkinson
- Christopher MarrenPeter
- Joshua BowmanEmergency Police
Recommendations
- 75
Observer
The filmmaking works in and of itself, but that Lakewood feels so emotionally in tune with its lead actress is a feat all on its own. - 70
Screen Daily
Directed with brisk efficiency by Philip Noyce, the mix of adrenaline-rush emotion, manipulative melodrama and moralising is surprisingly entertaining in the moment. - 42
The Film Stage
While Noyce and Watts try their best to ramp up tension, Sparling’s foundation proves too flimsy to comply. - 40
The Guardian
Before things go south, there’s an effectively clammy escalation of panic as Watts leaps from call to call . . . But the script, from Chris Sparling . . . isn’t quite ingenious enough to find ways to involve her in the drama. - 40
Variety
Watts’ commitment holds the movie together. She acts as if that phone were her flesh-and-blood partner. But it’s not. It’s a device impersonating something human. And so is Lakewood. - 40
Slashfilm
I'm sure Lakewood had its heart in the right place, and Watts, gosh love her, is really trying, since she's pretty much the only person on screen for most of the movie. But every step Amy takes towards the school is another misstep the movie makes, and by the time she gets to her destination, we've already mentally checked out. - 30
The Hollywood Reporter
A case study in how storytelling contrivances can sabotage a courageously vulnerable performance, the movie addresses American parents’ deepest fears but is just one or two steps away from inviting ritualized communal mockery, à la The Room, at midnight screenings. - 25
The Playlist
Philip Noyce is a natural choice for this kind of film. He’s great with actresses in peril and at keeping tension ramped up to eleven. But using the collective trauma of a generation of parents and children as the backdrop for a real-time thriller, whose lives have proven time and again to matter less than the right to own an AK-47, remains unconscionably distasteful.
