Locke

Unexpectedly, in the end, a very enjoyable one-man show, where Tom Hardy gives a very admirable performance and even this is not much of a thriller to speak of, his pleasant voice makes the film beautiful to watch and listen to. Compared to Robert Redford's All Is Lost, it is twice the experience. 75% (08/08/2014)

All it takes is to put Tom Hardy in a car with a solid script, and he'll deliver a minimalist acting masterpiece that slowly wraps you around its finger through a series of phone calls. During a single drive — less than two hours long — Ivan Locke loses everything he's built up until that point (quite literally). I enjoyed slowly uncovering the kind of person Ivan really is. While I found him somewhat relatable — especially during his calls about the massive concrete-pouring project — I mostly felt for the people closest to him (his wife, kids, and "mistress"). He manipulates them without fully realizing how much he's messing up, convincing himself that he only made one mistake, and for noble reasons at that. But life isn't black and white, and Ivan is too complex to easily label as good or bad. That's what makes Locke feel so real and compelling. (19/06/2018)

Outside of Locke, Steven Knight was the writer and director behind the ambitious but somewhat sympathetically infantile Hummingbird, starring Jason Statham, whose central motif was once again man, his principles, ineffable cyclicality, and the surrounding world, which is the enemy. The screenplay for Locke is basically brilliant, and I'll give a nipple for the fact that it was written in the introduction that film databases of the world would call the genre a thriller, of which it has some of the parameters (the action takes place almost in real time, a protagonist removed from his environment, dealing with hostility all around), but otherwise it's a pure drama about how a basically systematic protagonist decides to take an unexpected step and pragmatically carries it out according to his principles and procedures. It's terribly easy to keep a relative distance from Locke thanks to its ambition and an ending that few will probably find satisfying, except that you sort of have to admit that this is a genuinely bold move from director Steven Knight, comparable to the central character's struggle for his perceived soul. (22/09/2014)

Imagine a movie that takes place in a car and it has a single character whom you watch for the entire hour and a half. I can’t help but be happy with the result, because Tom Hardy delivered a great performance. Steven Knight, in turn, did a great job directing this movie so I was on tenterhooks the entire time, bating my breath and wondering how easy it is to mess up your entire life. (19/12/2014)

The thriller label that Filmbooster and IMBD gave to Locke generates the wrong expectations. I waited pretty long for those family and work phone calls to be interrupted by some extortionist or psychopath who would terrorise the protagonist over the phone. Yet, to my surprise, nobody like that called and the entire film stayed with the work and family calls. But it wasn’t boring even for a second, which must be credited to all interested parties. (02/08/2014)