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Locke
UK 2013
produced by Guy Heeley, Paul Webster, Stuart Ford (executive), David Jourdan (executive), Steven Squillante (executive), Joe Wright (executive) for IM Global, Shoebox Films
directed by Steven Knight
starring Tom Hardy and the voices of Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Olivia Colman, Tom Holland, Bill Milner, Danny Webb, Alice Lowe, Silas Carson, Lee Ross, Kirsty Dillon
written by Steven Knight, music by Dickon Hinchcliffe
review by Mike Haberfelner
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It's the night before his team starts building the single biggest
concrete structure in the UK, and Locke (Tom Hardy) is needed pretty much
on site 24/7 for preperations, and it's the night of his hometeam's
decisive match he planned to watch in the TV with his family ... and yet,
he jumps into his car and drives off to London, only informing wife (Ruth
Wilson) and work what he's doing when he's already on the way. Donal
(Andrew Scott) at work panics because the workload Locke has left him with
is way too big for a man of his limited experience, but Locke sorts
everything out over the phone. Gareth (Ben Daniels) at work tells him his
partners from Chicago have decided to fire him, which Locke couldn't care
less about as long as the building is built, with or without his direct
involvement. Now Locke is a very pragmatical man, that's why it was
rather easy for him to sort these things out, it's harder with his wife,
because the reason for him driving to London is to help a woman (Olivia
Colman) give birth to a baby - his baby from a one-night stand. And Locke
didn't have the courage to tell his wife up to now. It's not that he loves
the other woman, he hardly knows her and the one-night stand was the
result of too much alcohol, but now that she's having his baby he wants to
do the right thing and be by her side, because he was the result of a
one-night stand himself and never had a father, and now he wants to break
the circle - but not everything in life is as easy to control as concrete
... Locke is a single-location film, filmed entirely in
Locke's car (with the occasional establishing shot of course) and him
talking on the phone, trying to get his life back in line - and one
thing's for sure, Tom Hardy is brilliant in the role and has the talent to
keep up interest. The story as a whole is also well-structured enough to
work even for people who don't know the first thing about concrete, and it
finds the right balance between pure drama and pieces of comedy. But that
said, Locke isn't a total masterpiece, its underlying psychology is
just a bit too simplistic to ring totally true, Locke the character
himself is drawn as almost infallible (apart from that one one-night
stand), and there are some cheesy moments in there - but still, not only
considering the limited cast and locations, this is a rather entertaining
movie!
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