Locke
Directed by: Steven Knight
Written by: Steven Knight
Starring: Tom Hardy; Voiced by: Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Tom Holland, Bill Milner, Danny Webb
Drama/Thriller - 85 min
Written by: Steven Knight
Starring: Tom Hardy; Voiced by: Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Tom Holland, Bill Milner, Danny Webb
Drama/Thriller - 85 min
Locke is an intriguing experiment. We get 85 minutes of a man in a car driving south from Birmingham to London at night that talks a lot on the phone. The driver better have some excellent phone conversations, otherwise, this idea will never leave the ground. Luckily for us, driver Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) alters his entire life through a series of phone calls as we eavesdrop in on him.
The idea of filming one man in a car for an hour and a half may sound claustrophobic at first, but the camera is free to move around. Writer/director Steven Knight stationed three cameras inside the car for perspective and sometimes we get a helicopter view or a backwards shot from a car in front. For true claustrophobia, check out 2010’s Buried with Ryan Reynolds, an entire film shot within a buried coffin with a very panicked man inside of it.
Back to Locke, the filming was also unorthodox. Knight shot the movie sequentially over a series of six nights. Hardy performed his script twice per night in a single take. The characters on the other end of the phone were in a hotel room. Therefore, the entire success or failure of the film rests on the shoulders of one man, Tom Hardy. There are no camera tricks to distract us nor any other characters to look at; just Tom Hardy behind a steering wheel.
So what makes Locke so interesting? His integrity. Ivan Locke’s re-discovery of his fierce integrity literally drives him to unmake his entire life in one drive. At first, we see Locke in reflective construction attire leaving a site. He is a senior manager at an immense new 55-story building with 200+ trucks full of soft concrete due in the morning. We learn this will be the largest concrete pour in all of Europe. But will Locke be there? No. He is driving south away from the site costing himself his job and jeopardizing future employment prospects.
His incredulous and frightened assistant, Donal (Andrew Scott), cannot believe he is now the man responsible for the whole project. Locke’s boss, Gareth (Ben Daniels), threatens any number of repercussions on Locke’s head if he fails to turn the car around. So, why is Locke driving south? A woman named Bethan (Olivia Colman) is in labor giving birth to his child. By the way, Bethan is not his wife.
Locke’s wife, Katrina (Ruth Wilson), is at home with their two boys watching the huge football match that the rest of the country is watching. His boys do not understand why dad is missing this important game and Katrina locks herself upstairs after Locke confesses his sins, all over the phone. Locke and Bethan had a one-night stand and she decided to keep the resulting fetus. Locke is stepping up to the plate to own his mistake while annihilating his old life in the rearview mirror.
Why the integrity? Why not just accept the mistake but still show up to work tomorrow and try to smooth things over with the wife? The answer appears to be a ghost, or figment of Locke’s subconscious. During phone call pauses, Locke looks in the rearview mirror at the backseat definitely talking to someone, but no one we can see. Locke sees his deceased father; the father who was not there for him when he was born. It appears that to correct the sins of the past, Locke will destroy numerous lives, including his own, to ensure he will not carry that original sin of abandonment into the future.
Steven Knight has written spellbinding cinema before including Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and Eastern Promises (2007). Writing emotional and dramatic dialogue that can reach out and affect an audience from a car phone is impressive. Tom Hardy, who you remember as Bane from The Dark Knight Rises (2012), shape shifts into a man obscured by street light shadows who clearly sees the path he must take.
Locke is not entirely mesmerizing and will not nail you to your seat; there really is only so much you can do inside the car scrolling through your contact list. However, Locke still works as a dramatic thriller at times and while we may not understand Locke’s reasoning and determined course of action, we can follow along enough to believe it.
The idea of filming one man in a car for an hour and a half may sound claustrophobic at first, but the camera is free to move around. Writer/director Steven Knight stationed three cameras inside the car for perspective and sometimes we get a helicopter view or a backwards shot from a car in front. For true claustrophobia, check out 2010’s Buried with Ryan Reynolds, an entire film shot within a buried coffin with a very panicked man inside of it.
Back to Locke, the filming was also unorthodox. Knight shot the movie sequentially over a series of six nights. Hardy performed his script twice per night in a single take. The characters on the other end of the phone were in a hotel room. Therefore, the entire success or failure of the film rests on the shoulders of one man, Tom Hardy. There are no camera tricks to distract us nor any other characters to look at; just Tom Hardy behind a steering wheel.
So what makes Locke so interesting? His integrity. Ivan Locke’s re-discovery of his fierce integrity literally drives him to unmake his entire life in one drive. At first, we see Locke in reflective construction attire leaving a site. He is a senior manager at an immense new 55-story building with 200+ trucks full of soft concrete due in the morning. We learn this will be the largest concrete pour in all of Europe. But will Locke be there? No. He is driving south away from the site costing himself his job and jeopardizing future employment prospects.
His incredulous and frightened assistant, Donal (Andrew Scott), cannot believe he is now the man responsible for the whole project. Locke’s boss, Gareth (Ben Daniels), threatens any number of repercussions on Locke’s head if he fails to turn the car around. So, why is Locke driving south? A woman named Bethan (Olivia Colman) is in labor giving birth to his child. By the way, Bethan is not his wife.
Locke’s wife, Katrina (Ruth Wilson), is at home with their two boys watching the huge football match that the rest of the country is watching. His boys do not understand why dad is missing this important game and Katrina locks herself upstairs after Locke confesses his sins, all over the phone. Locke and Bethan had a one-night stand and she decided to keep the resulting fetus. Locke is stepping up to the plate to own his mistake while annihilating his old life in the rearview mirror.
Why the integrity? Why not just accept the mistake but still show up to work tomorrow and try to smooth things over with the wife? The answer appears to be a ghost, or figment of Locke’s subconscious. During phone call pauses, Locke looks in the rearview mirror at the backseat definitely talking to someone, but no one we can see. Locke sees his deceased father; the father who was not there for him when he was born. It appears that to correct the sins of the past, Locke will destroy numerous lives, including his own, to ensure he will not carry that original sin of abandonment into the future.
Steven Knight has written spellbinding cinema before including Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and Eastern Promises (2007). Writing emotional and dramatic dialogue that can reach out and affect an audience from a car phone is impressive. Tom Hardy, who you remember as Bane from The Dark Knight Rises (2012), shape shifts into a man obscured by street light shadows who clearly sees the path he must take.
Locke is not entirely mesmerizing and will not nail you to your seat; there really is only so much you can do inside the car scrolling through your contact list. However, Locke still works as a dramatic thriller at times and while we may not understand Locke’s reasoning and determined course of action, we can follow along enough to believe it.
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