Review of Locke (2014) by Mike N — 14 Oct 2014

Another week, another release from A24, and once again the team knocks it out of the park. Locke is a truly fascinating film from Steven Knight (director of Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things) and starring Tom Hardy, and only Tom Hardy (though Luther's Ruth Wilson and Sherlock's Andrew Scott have voice roles). The ingenious and innovative conceit of Locke is that it has, save an opening establishing shot, one location and one actor. The entire 84 minutes of action takes place in Ivan Locke's car as he drives away from his construction site. With a large concrete pour scheduled for the following morning and a family waiting at home for him to join them for a football match, Ivan Locke receives a phone call which forces him to abandon it all and drive to London. To spoil the central conceit of the film, introduced early on, is to ruin some of the magic, but rest assured, this isn't The Drop. The so-called "criminal life" used so often in films to create drama isn't at all present in Locke, and yet it more brilliantly, poetically and realistically grapples with what it means to be a man than any of those tough talking allegories.

A series of phone calls between Ivan and his boss, his co-worker, his wife and a woman named Bethan reveal Ivan's true integrity, and how such a sense of honor can destroy everything a man has built for himself. The film employs a Joyce-like embrace of the tension within the banal, and its protagonist is that extraordinary Hemingway vision of the ideal man, whose grace under pressure and strong moral code fuel the film and keep it moving forward even with the absence of twists and turns. The viewer finds themselves drawn in to intricate discussions of permits and building codes, as though the inner workings of the concrete business were the highest form of suspense possible, and its all due to an absolutely top-notch, career best performance from Tom Hardy. For 84 straight minutes, Hardy performed the dazzling feat of carrying and driving the narrative of a film, interacting either with off-screen voices or nothing at all, and he does so with a brilliant flair and a grounded humanity that make Locke an absolutely astounding piece of cinema. It's stripped down, raw, honest humanity, taking the viewer on a journey into what it truly means to be a man, tearing down its protagonist, robbing him of everything except the one thing that defines him, his sense of duty. It's the anti-Mad Men, an exploration not of the artifice of manliness, but the soul of the masculine identity, and how pride does come before the fall, but that such a fall is noble, is glorious and is righteous. Available in select theaters and on demand, Locke is a must-see mediation on identity and honor.