There have been a few decent movies around over the years where the star doesn’t really move from his central locale. ‘Phonebox’ with Colin Farrell and ‘Buried’ with Ryan Reynolds comes to mind. Big stars love these low budget movies as they get all the best lines, most of the money and in every scene with plenty of close up’s. Locke is one of those projects and a movie I had heard a lot of good things about.
It stars our very own Tom Hardy, the M1, a mid range BMW and a Bluetooth car phone, and that’s about it. Tom is in the car for the whole of the movie and it took just 6 days to shoot. The movie had an unconventional shooting schedule. Hardy filmed his part in 6 days, shooting the movie twice per night as it was filmed in a single take as the car drove up and down the motorway all night. The other actors who you only hear on the phone(and never see) were in a hotel room, speaking on the carphone with Hardy, who was on location on the motorway, of course, occasionally on the back of a truck or being towed.
Its from screenwriter Stephen Knight, who, before his movie career, was one of the creators of Who Wants to be a Million, a huge earner that allowed him to pursue his passion, writing movies. This is only his second as director, The Hummingbird with Jason Statham, a movie that couldn’t be further way from Locke if it tried. Hardy is a class act and can do pretty much anything, accept a Welsh accent, the requirement here as Ivan Locke. Sadly his Richard Burton tribute backfires like an old Morris Minor. That aside a lot of the critics purred over his multi-dimensional acting performance here.
Cast
Tom Hardy . Ivan Locke
Olivia Colman . Bethan(voice)
Ruth Wilson . Katrina(voice)
Andrew Scott . Donal(voice)
Ben Daniels . Gareth(voice)
Tom Holland . Eddie(voice)
Bill Milner . Sean(voice)
Danny Webb . Cassidy(voice)
Alice Lowe . Sister Margaret(voice)
Silas Carson . Doctor Gullu(voice)
Plot
Its late evening in the autumn cool and drizzle as construction foreman Ivan Locke(Tom Hardy) departs a Brummie building site heading for the motorway. Tomorrow he will supervise one of the biggest single pour concrete foundation fills in Europe and so you would think he wants to get some grub and get his head down. Not so. Instead he is on a mission. He wants to be at the bedside of the birth of his son, to a woman named Bethan(Olivia Colman), who he is not married to and had a one night stand with 7 months previous, out of character for the dependable, honest and very married Locke.
Wife Kat(Ruth Wilson) is none the wiser to his infidelity as Ivan starts to make calls from his phone to tell her and his son Sean(Bill Milner) that he wont be home tonight as planned to watch the big match together. He then receives a call from Bethan who is about to go into labor and wants him to be there sharpish but still an hour out. He now has to break the news to his boss Gareth(Ben Daniels) that he may not be at the site for the big pour, making Gareth as angry as he is nervous. Even more stressed is Donal(Andrew Scott), Locke’s number two, who has to now take over the final touches and tasks to insure the pour goes ahead, made worse that the manual to do that is still in Locke’s BMW. Locke is meticulous and reliable employee and not used to making mistakes and dumping responsibilities on others who can’t deal with it. The pressure is mounting on the phone as he tries to juggle work, the birth, the wife and anything else that may come his way, man used to resolving problems. By the morning he may have none of it left.
Results
Ok, I struggled with this. Once the premise is set up and you digest his rubbish Welsh accent and the rather tedious domestic bind he is in you get bored very quickly. This is more like Max Boyce than Mad Max! ‘I wanna tell you a story’. I was kind of hoping he had buried a body in the concrete and so a much nastier man and mystery to unwrap. But instead it’s a film about a normal guy unraveling after a moment of madness with some bird in a B&B. In fact there is a moment of madness when he starts berating himself in the car for unknown reasons.it just doesn’t feel realistic at all and although an interesting dimension of a control freak trapped in a situation he can’t control whilst being trapped in a car he can control the reality is he would not jeopardize his job and family for some women he had a one night stand with. He would not be the man he is without prioritizing work over family. I’m sure he wants to do right by everyone but hat doesn’t work in context of the film. Women always feel neglected when their men work hard all day and night to keep the family together and safe in a nice house but soon divorce them when they lose that lifestyle and money. That is the contradiction that should have been explored here.
I can see the appeal of the layered performance by Hardy but a half-hour in you know the rest and so quickly lose interest. We are presented with a build up of drama by a top actor that dribbles out into a simple domestic, the sort the cops would issue you with a caution for wasting police time for. The concrete thing makes it even more surreal and dull and you find yourself talking Welsh ordering cement to amuse yourself. I just don’t think Hardy was right for this movie as he has too much presence and providence as an action hero in much bigger movies and the situation of being beside some women for the birth lacks credibility. I can’t blame Knight for wanting to make his movie with Hardy but I just think it would have been better off as a one hour TV drama on BBC2 with a little more to the plot. It could have been so much with a more exciting scenario.
RATINGS
Imdb.com – 7.1/10.0(81, 965 votes)
Rottentomatos.com – 91% critic’s approval
Metacritic.com – 81% critic’s approval
Trailer
https://imdb.com/title/tt2692904/
Special Features
=Ordinary Unraveling: Making Locke=
Behind the scenes stuff with cast & crew.
=Audio Commentary=
Stephen Knight talks about his film.
Critics
The Brisbane Star –‘At the heart of it there is Hardy, whose performance is both deeply humane and oddly robotic: a man with a single purpose - get to that destination - pursued relentlessly.
The Mail –‘The thriller feel is aided and abetted by the fact that Knight traps us inside the world of a guy who is himself trapped’.
Christianity Today –‘One of the strengths of Locke is the way it explores masculinity, both in its classic and contemporary forms’.
The NY Times –‘Locke surely won’t be for everyone, but those looking to challenge their perceptions about what film making can be, should surely check it out. You’ll be appreciative’.
Rolling Stone –‘Hardy gives Locke a calm, steady self-assessment, a kind of lucid despair. He’s a guy forced to realize in one night that his life has no foundation’.
Las Vegas Times –‘Locke is nearly the very definition of ingenuity. And, in the end, you learn a little about concrete and a lot about what it takes to be a man’
People Magazine –‘Besides a compelling script and restrained directorial hand, it takes a marvelously talented actor to pull off that kind of high-wire act, and Hardy once again proves why he’s one of the best of his generation’.
Star – Tom Hardy
Genre – Drama
Run Time – 85 minutes
Certificate – 18
Country – United Kingdom
Awards – 7 Wins & 30 Nominations
Amazon – £DVD £ Blue Ray