Locke
Director: Steven Knight
Cast: Tom Hardy
Length: 85 mins
Country: UK/USA
Steven Knight’s first feature film, 2013’s Hummingbird, was a compliant genre picture that served to solidify Jason Statham’s Transporter regime for yet another year. While suave looking and competent it didn’t really allow for Knight to stretch his screenwriting arms very far. His previous credits have included the hard knock crime thriller Eastern Promises, and the insightful character exploration that was Dirty Pretty Things. But in Locke, Knight may have found the footing that he initially stumbled with in his first feature.
Locke jumps into the life of a single individual, Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy), a construction foreman who is about to on the eve of the largest job of his career. Before setting off home, Locke makes a swift change of plan as he instead ventures from Birmingham to London on the motorway, much to the dismay of him employers and his family back home, all of whom have been unaware of Locke’s hidden truths up until this point. As the evening unfolds on his 2 hour car journey, so do the succession events that slowly take their toll upon him as the life he once knew loosens and crumbles before him.
Tom Hardy has exploded onto the Hollywood circuit in the past 5 years, and one of the last traits that would come to mind when regarding him as a performer is ‘subtlety’. Here, Hardy underplays like never before. Speaking with a flat and calm Welsh accent, Hardy is tasked with carrying the heavy weight of an entire film on his shoulders alone. The only character on screen for the entire picture, his only support comes from those he speaks to via his onboard speaker phone. This is a feat that he clears with immense ease through his communicative facial expressions, each conveying his growing exasperation and inner turmoil with the many people he verbally confronts throughout his drive. Locke’s character unravels slowly through the way that he interacts with others. He is revealed as an incredibly calculated individual, fixated on each of his goals at hand in what he refers to as “a list of things to do”. The drama really sprouts from Locke’s gradual loss of control over every element of his life as his plans fall to pieces, and he struggles to keep it together while also keeping his eye on the road. Locke is someone so determined in his aim that he is willing to accept the great sacrifices that he will have to make in such a manner that he feels removed from the real world that he’s facing. A man diving head first into the abyss, knowing that his final destination is a place that only he can go.
Tom Hardy underplays like never before. Speaking with a flat and calm Welsh accent, Hardy is tasked with carrying the heavy weight of an entire film on his shoulders alone. The only character on screen for the entire picture, his only support comes from those he speaks to via his onboard speaker phone. This is a feat that he clears with immense ease through his communicative facial expressions, each conveying his growing exasperation and inner turmoil with the many people he verbally confronts throughout his drive.
The film manages to convey a great deal about both Locke’s personality and the inner workings of his life through richly layered dialogue that paints a picture of his former life. It’s fantastically well delivered by an expansive British cast, made even more difficult due to it being only their voices that we hear the whole time. Locke does occasionally soliloquise to himself, directing abuse at the imaginary ghost of his dead father in the back seat. A man who Locke holds severe resentment towards and wishes never to follow in his footsteps, by righting the wrongs in his own life that his father failed to do in his. These are some of the moments in which the film loses focus of its real conflicts, adding yet another drama to the mix where it simply isn’t needed. Not that it’s uninteresting, but it’s handled worse than any other element in the film and sticks out because of its obscurity. Locke may comically state at one point that he is “losing his mind”, but at no point do we ever feel that his psyche genuinely slipping.
Aesthetically, the film is a blur of neon lights and pitch blackness throughout. The close shots of Locke within his car are effective at conveying his growing confinement as his world gets smaller and further away from him. But the editing of these scenes sometimes feel messy, as images blur within each other to convey the passing of time, the same occurs in moments where the camera might as well just hold itself on a single take.
Yet overall, the film is a unique and restrained effort that weaves and maintains intensity within a single chapter of a characters life. The road is his path, while the car feels like an extension of himself, racing towards the finish at faster speeds. The moment the car is placed into ignition at the start, it almost draws breath as if it has become one with its driver, ready for the journey ahead.
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