Review of Locke (2014) by Douevnlft — 28 Apr 2014

Locke is a film directed by Steven Knight, it is about a Welsh concrete enthusiast called Ivan Locke who, over the course of 85 minutes real time, watches his whole life crumble beneath his feet.

The entire film sees Ivan Locke (portrayed by Tom Hardy) driving down a motorway towards London to reach a destination to ‘fix’ something (no specifics as I’m not giving out any spoilers). As Hardy is the only on-screen actor in the entire film it is very reliant on his acting skills to carry the story forward, as it is a purely story-driven experience.

Throughout the film Ivan makes a series of phone calls to family members, co-workers and acquaintances, and as each phone call is carried out the situation for Ivan gets worse and worse.

Hardy’s performance throughout the film is stunning, showing a range of emotions and actions when still restricted to his car seat alone. Hardy makes everything he says and all of the decisions he makes believable and very human. There was no point in the film in which I felt something that came from him didn’t feel genuine and all of his lines were delivered impeccably.

The story was very solid and it shows a huge different array of things that can change in one man’s life over the course of just 85 minutes. I won’t go into details but his entire life goes from perfectly afloat to completely destroyed in about 45 minutes. The story is not wrapped up very well though, as at the end I had more questions about the story than answers, and this kind of film does not warrant a sequel, as it would not make any sense. He comes to an ultimate resolution but nothing about what happens after is explained. One thing that I did think is if he reached his destination and there was a sequence outside of his car it would disrupt the tone and style of the film, so that could be why Knight made the decision to stop it where he did.

The way the film is presented is very dark in its visual style and tone. The film is set during the night time and never escapes that as the movie is completely real time from start to finish with no skips or gaps.

The film is very unique in a way that it is essentially an 85 minute monologue of a man losing everything he has and holds dear to him. There is no action, and no other on-screen characters other than Locke in his car. It certainly is an acquired taste and I could only recommend it if you only want a good story and don’t mind if there’s nothing else to it.

I would seriously recommend that you go out and see this if you haven’t already, it’s a great experience with amazing performances and a solid story.