Locke

There will always be actors who stand out among a film’s cast, but it takes an especially talented actor to stand alone and captivate an audience. Tom Hardy is such an actor, as evident in his solo performance in Locke. The film is an 85-minute thrill ride with you in the passenger seat. It’s just you, Tom Hardy, and a whole lot of concrete.

Ivan Locke (Hardy) is a dedicated construction foreman who is on the eve of one of the biggest concrete pours the city of Birmingham has ever seen. It just so happens to also be the eve of his child’s birth; a child not from his wife, but from a woman he had a one-night stand with. Deciding to do what he believes to be the right thing, he abandons his job to drive the 100-plus miles to London to be there for the birth. Along the way, he struggles to deal with the fallout of his decision in both his personal and professional life.

There are no flashy visuals or exotic locales in Locke. It’s simply Tom Hardy in a car driving on the highway and the dozen or so calls he takes trying to solve all the problems that arise because of his departure. I had my doubts going in that the film could keep me interested for long being as basic of an outline as you could get, but Tom Hardy’s performance is so perfect that it’s impossible to look away.

Locke explores the inner workings of a man who is trying to fix all the cracks in his life in a single night. Even though he’s lost his job for leaving the site the night before its biggest pour, he still wants to see the building project through and guides the unprepared Donal through the necessary steps by phone. Meanwhile, he also has to break the news to his wife that he had an affair and that he won’t be home that night because he’s on the way to his child’s birth. He’s juggling all of these monumental situations at once and does so with an uncanny calmness, at least when he’s on the phone with someone.

It’s in-between calls that you get a real sense of who Ivan Locke is as he often times lets himself go with sudden rages. They’re quick little outbursts that show he’s frustrated with the whole situation, a situation that he put himself in. Locke also has one-sided conversations with his deceased father, who he imagines sitting in the backseat, judging him. It’s the fact that his own father wasn’t there for him growing up that he decides to be there for the birth of his child, even though he barely knows the mother. He wants to be a good father, just as he wants to be a good foreman. It doesn’t matter how much you want something though, because sometimes the decision can be out of your control.

In a time where movies feel all over the place, Locke hones in on a single focal point and doesn’t swerve away. Tom Hardy delivers the finest performance of his career. If there’s anyone I’d want to be trapped in a car with for an hour and a half, it’d be him.