Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little writeup of another damn fine film from this year's Sundance lineup. Locke begins with Tom Hardy getting into his car and there he stays for the entire runtime.
Ivan Locke is by all accounts a good man. He's a construction man, king of concrete. He's the go-to guy when it comes to making strong foundations for skyscrapers and is in charge of the biggest job of his career when he just up and decides to take a right turn out of town, towards London and away from his waiting family.
All but the first 90 or so seconds of the film takes place in this car as Hardy takes and makes a series of calls juggling his job responsibilities, his familial responsibilities and, of course, his reason for taking the hour and a half out of left field drive to London.
Locke's essentially a one man show, so thank God they had Tom Hardy as that one man because in lesser hands this film would have very quickly lost its appeal. Hardy really brings his A-game here and director Steven Knight is able to keep things visually interesting as the emotional story builds and becomes more and more chaotic.
It really all does rest on Hardy's shoulders, though. I can only imagine the pressure being the sole focus of an entire film puts on an actor. If Hardy felt any of that pressure it sure doesn't show in the film. His performance is assured and multi-layered. This seemingly composed individual begins to crack as the reality of the consequences of his “right thing to do” decision settles in.
A24 is releasing this one April 25th, so make sure to keep an eye out if you like good movies.
Make sure to Follow Me On Twitter as I continue to wade through all the crazy movies (not to mention the snow) at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. I'll be tweeting my immediate thoughts throughout the fest, so follow along, whydontcha?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
