Review of Locke (2014) by Damian S — 08 Jun 2018

"Locke", released in 2013, is the story of Ivan Locke, who is challenged with a big upset in his construction career as he's making the drive to the birth of his child with his unknown affair. Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the film. In regard to the drama surrounding Ivan's career, I had a hard time following what exactly was going on. The conflict surrounding Ivan's affair and the devastation of his wife felt to me to be a much more compelling story to follow. As a whole, I found my attention drifting from the movie and oftentimes was unable to focus.

I feel that the execution of the intended story was done well. The film could very easily have been much more of a bore - with the premise following Ivan as he's in his car through the entirety of the film. Steven Knight's execution of it made it much more appealing - choosing to use techniques such as zooming in and out of focus throughout Ivan's conversations. He also utilized a variety of angles within the car to switch up the perspective. The zooms in and out were especially effective in scenarios such as when Ivan was telling his wife of his affair as the technique adds to the jarring context of the story.

Overall, I feel that the dialogue and the acting were all well done. Everything seemed to fit well within the context and the reality of the film and Tom Hardy did a great job in his role. Something that I found when researching the film was that the car used in the film would ding when the fuel got low. This would typically happen when Hardy was in the middle of a monologue and would frustrated him. In post-production Knight chose to add in a voice saying "call waiting" in place of the ding to prompt Hardy's frustration.

As far as editing was concerned in the film, it felt to move through the shots pretty quickly. The editor chose not to stay on any shot for too long, choosing instead to move very smoothly, quickly, and efficiently between a few different shots - never allowing the viewer to feel the film was stagnant. Considering the film could very well be stagnant - with it taking place with one character in a contained car, this helped the film tremendously.

Overall, I respect the integrity of the film a great deal, though as much as I respect it, it isn't one that I would choose to see again. Technically speaking, I feel that it was a great achievement and a great feat, especially seen in the choice of shots as well as the way that the director chose to make the most of Hardy's performance. However, the story explored wasn't compelling enough for me. I didn't feel intrigued enough by the context to choose to follow this man as he sits in his car for an hour and a half. It was very well done though!