Locke

When describing Locke, a single character, single location movie about a man driving a car for 90 minutes, its difficult not to give the impression that this is some kind of gimmicky thriller with a ticking clock, or a theatrical think-piece that would be better suited to the stage, or perhaps the latest film by Abbas Kiarostami. But Locke subverts all expectations with its novel approach to the solo-actor movie. This deeply effective character study paints a rich, multi-dimensional portrait of a man who has worked diligently to construct the perfect life for himself, only to have it potentially destroyed by a single moment of weakness and his own sense of honor and duty. Ivan Locke’s fate will be sealed by a series of phone conversations he has as he drives his car to London. There is no one on the other end of any of these phone calls with a gun, or a bomb, or a hostage; this is not a film about any kind of extraordinary circumstance. Locke is a fairly average man who finds himself in a dilemma that he knew was coming, but that is heightened because it occurs earlier than his precise, organized mind had expected.

Tom Hardy gives a riveting performance as Locke. For audiences who only know this actor from his outsized rolls in films like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson (2008), Gavin O'Connor’s Warrior (2011) or Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2012) it may be a shock to see him play such a mild-mannered and deeply rational family man. But anyone familiar with Hardy’s stage work will be well acquainted with the expansive range of this talented artist. Hardy is the entire show here, masterfully embodying the character and conveying everything we need to know about his past, present and potential future through this series of phone conversations as well as internal discussions he has with his dead father. Writer/Director Steven Knight (screenwriter of 2013’s Closed Circuit, 2007’s Eastern Promises and 2002’s Dirty Pretty Things) crafts these dramatic conversations with subtlety and realism and has clearly put much thought into casting the voice actors, but its Hardy’s hypnotically calm delivery that makes it all so engrossing. Locke is clearly a stabilizing force in his world, but alone in this car with him, we see his calm demeanor being put to its ultimate test.

Visually, the film is no great tour-de-force. It’s basically the same 6 or 8 angles on Hardy for the entire 90 minutes, but this limited mise en scène actually serves the picture well by putting the character--and specifically his voice--front and center. could have worked as a radio drama except that Hardy’s facial expressions and subtle reactions are the key to unlocking the inner workings of this man for us. His dialogues with his dead father risk breaking the picture’s delicate spell of reality and moving it too far into theatrical territory, but Knight sidesteps this by occasionally cutting to shots of Locke thinking as we hear him converse, making it clear that these are his inner thoughts and not an actual monologue. Still, I can’t help but wonder if Knight could have gotten all his exposition across without these exchanges. If we could have gotten to know Locke as well solely by observing him driving and talking on the phone, the film might have been a masterpiece.