Locke

Locke's poster suggests speed. In fact, the BMW Locke drives down Britain's M6 motorway never goes above 60 mph.
The movements here are all inside Locke's mind. Wonderful.

Watching Locke you get the feeling the film was written and directed by a twenty five year old upstart. A kid, really, more interested in innovation than emotion. I looked up the writer/director. He is 56 year old Steven Knight, a Brit, and with a string of screenwriting credits behind him. So...that was my first misconception. The second one actually took place before I saw the film. I had read that the entire film took place inside a moving car, the camera trained on Mr. Hardy, and that was pretty much it. How, I wondered, could this possibly be anything more than an interesting, meandering, but ultimately failed experiment? As I say, that was my second misconception.

The landscape of Tom Hardy's face in Locke registers a gamut of feelings.
It's as much of a canvas as the surrounding lights and reflections zipping by.

As it turns out, Locke is dramatic, beautifully rendered, and entirely original. For starters, there's Mr. Hardy, the actor who played Bane, the guy with the muzzle on his face, in that Batman movie. Oh, and he's also the new Mad Max, who also spends part of the film wearing a muzzle. Hmm... We're talking heavy. Predatory. Lethal. One assumes he was typecast. Third misconception: Mr. Hardy's Locke is a vulnerable, all-too-human, sensitive, caring, but persistent middle class man from Wales who just needs to get to the hospital in time to see the child he's fathered with a woman other than his wife (who's waiting for him to come home to her and the kids so they may take in a soccer match on the telly).

The BMW X5 rigged up.

And then there's the matter of his job. It's the night before the biggest contract of his career (he supervises concrete pouring for skyscrapers) and he's just told his boss that he's not going to be there in the morning. And finally, there's his dad, long gone but to Locke still here; in fact, in the car (as imagined by Locke), and forced - now - to listen to his son telling him he's a shit for abandoning him as a child and he's not about to abandon the baby - his baby - that's about to be born. Brilliant writing, I'd say. We are privy to the character's private, personal, and professional life - all of it in one fell swoop. Well, it's actually 36 swoops. 36 phone calls to and from Locke's mistress, wife, kids, co-workers, and boss, all of them conducted hands-free, all of them performed in real time by actors whose voices were transmitted into Mr. Hardy's picture car which, as you can see from the images enclosed, is rigged for filming and includes, it appears, tele-prompters, gadgets Mr. Hardy may have used. No matter.

The BMW in action. Note the tele-prompters.

Tom Hardy may be the best British actor since Gary Oldman (whom he admires) and this film is proof positive that we're dealing with one of the greats. See it on Netflix. Its brief US theatrical run, its modest production parameters, and its simple story of a complex man coming to terms with himself in no way diminishes this big hearted, generous tale of redemption.

Tom Hardy. Perhaps the best British actor since Gary Oldman. Certainly as versatile.
This is the man who plays Bane in that Batman flic, and - oh - he's also the new Mad Max.