What director Knight excels at is continually inventive framing and composition, at suggesting, through layers of window and reflected traffic, the mental state of Locke, the hero.
Who would of thought that a movie that is exclusively about one man in his car on the phone could be so suspenseful.
Hardy is superb in this underrated movie.
A captivating Tom Hardy is in the driver’s seat for the one-man show Locke, but like many experimental films, this one suffers from its self-imposed constraints.
Full credit to Hardy and Knight for making a film such as Locke. Low-budget film-makers could learn a lot from their method. And yet – having stripped away all but the bare necessities, having reduced the components to a car and a man – they make a classic error of overcompensation.
While I found the story itself to be a little meh, this is an absolute acting clinic by Tom Hardy. He literally carries this entire film on his shoulders.
Ron Howard mentioned during a Reddit AMA Tom Hardy's award-worthy performance in Locke. Before viewing, I perused the reviews where it seemed the main concern was that it was boring. In the same scope as Buried, I optimistically expected to make it halfway through the movie. At no point was I bored, rather enthralled. Hardy's acting is perfection, creating a tangible character aided by the voice of an excellent Adam Scott. The story won't change your life, but it was an entertaining movie to watch, done well given the style, and though the ending was somewhat obscure, you don't leave disappointed. The character, at times, seemed frustratingly cavalier, but perhaps differentiating from the audience expectation is part of what made Ivan Locke appear more real, making the story more intriguing to follow.
Terrible ending, nothing happens. Tom Hardy is an excellent actor but sadly I simply can't recommend this to anyone. After watching this movie l have literally created an account to post this, just to illustrate my frustration.
Drama/Thriller this site categorizes it! It is nothing, nothing whatsoever of a thriller! It is a lousy little nothing drama. Metacritic: fact check this stuff and never take the distributor or producing entity's word on anything.
Look at the idiot critics here in mostly praise for this half baked scriptless tripe. They think they're supposed to like it and there's more there than meets the eye just because it's British?
This is an example of filmmakers with no real idea for a movie but had a way to very easily make one very cheaply with no script, no locations, no cast and sell it as some kind of innovative piece of cinema. It ****. It's not a movie at all but a scriptless (anybody can scrawl meandering, repetitive, mundane conversational dialogue with no structure onto a page, anybody at all, that doesn't make it a movie!) acting exercise for 80 minutes in a moving car. The only thing remotely interesting is the graphical movement of the lights along the motorway, but for that kind of thing you're better off going to a museum than a movie theatre.
Incredibly annoying is listening to the makers of the film go on and on about their brilliance and how original the film is in the little making-of DVD extra. Every over worked adage is bloviated over and over. Especially ridiculous is the notion that Tom Hardy was THE ONLY actor for the part. What a joke! These Brits are incredibly unoriginal as if reading from a movie marketing guide book. All come off as novices.
On another note, the idiot director here made the film in anamorphic 2:35 widescreen. A stupid choice since 1.) this film is about as small as it gets and 2.) the film's life is on video where over 30% of the screen is lost to letterbox and the intended peripheral effect is out the window anyway.
This idiotic trend now of putting out way too many movies in scope including unworthy small movies like this one not to mention dopey comedies, children's titles, etc. is the result of short sighted industry morons. All it does is diminish the effect for worthy large spectacle pictures while at the same time robbing the home video screen real estate of smaller ones.
Jackass directors, producers, distributors have to stop doing this! Think idiots. Why are you making that choice?