Movie Review: Locke with Tom Hardy
Sep. 6th, 2014 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowfireflameMovie Review: Locke with Tom Hardy, Andrew Scott, Olivia Coleman, and Ruth Wilson
Construction director Ivan Locke is having a very important day, but unfortunately everything is happening at once. All coinciding in one night are the birth of his illegitimate son (to a woman whom his wife does not know about), the culmination of a massive construction project with tons of little details he’s supposed to be overseeing, and a big football game he’s supposed to be watching with his sons. Despite trying to micro-manage each of them as he drives from Birmingham to London to be there for the baby’s birth, he finds his life spiraling out of control.
This is a very strange movie in which Tom Hardy is the only actor we actually see onscreen. He is brilliant at portraying a man trying so hard to hold everything together—his career, his personal life, and above all his own emotions and sense of duty—when it’s all falling apart. Although the story itself and Tom Hardy’s emotions are very effective, his creepily calm Welsh accent is so weird, making him sound stilted and unnatural, especially in comparison to the other actors, who feel much more realistic.
There’s also a part in which Locke talks in the rearview mirror to his dead father, a conceit which truly does not work. I think I get what they were going for—making him seem like a usually calm control freak who’s losing it—but instead, it just makes him seem like a theater actor monologuing in a one-man play instead of a real person.
Andrew Scott plays Donal, Locke’s coworker who finds himself unexpectedly in charge of pouring concrete for a $100 million project when Locke can’t be there. Naturally, he’s freaking out about it, drinking, slowly losing it as things get more and more desperate. Andrew brings a ton of energy to the role, and it was always a pleasure to hear his distinctive voice.
I suppose I went into the movie thinking it would be about a guy on the run from gangsters (you know, your typical stuck-in-a-car situation), but it was a bit refreshing to see that it was actually quite a deep character study, even if certain elements didn’t entirely gel for me.
More Andrew Scott reviews here.
Construction director Ivan Locke is having a very important day, but unfortunately everything is happening at once. All coinciding in one night are the birth of his illegitimate son (to a woman whom his wife does not know about), the culmination of a massive construction project with tons of little details he’s supposed to be overseeing, and a big football game he’s supposed to be watching with his sons. Despite trying to micro-manage each of them as he drives from Birmingham to London to be there for the baby’s birth, he finds his life spiraling out of control.
This is a very strange movie in which Tom Hardy is the only actor we actually see onscreen. He is brilliant at portraying a man trying so hard to hold everything together—his career, his personal life, and above all his own emotions and sense of duty—when it’s all falling apart. Although the story itself and Tom Hardy’s emotions are very effective, his creepily calm Welsh accent is so weird, making him sound stilted and unnatural, especially in comparison to the other actors, who feel much more realistic.
There’s also a part in which Locke talks in the rearview mirror to his dead father, a conceit which truly does not work. I think I get what they were going for—making him seem like a usually calm control freak who’s losing it—but instead, it just makes him seem like a theater actor monologuing in a one-man play instead of a real person.
Andrew Scott plays Donal, Locke’s coworker who finds himself unexpectedly in charge of pouring concrete for a $100 million project when Locke can’t be there. Naturally, he’s freaking out about it, drinking, slowly losing it as things get more and more desperate. Andrew brings a ton of energy to the role, and it was always a pleasure to hear his distinctive voice.
I suppose I went into the movie thinking it would be about a guy on the run from gangsters (you know, your typical stuck-in-a-car situation), but it was a bit refreshing to see that it was actually quite a deep character study, even if certain elements didn’t entirely gel for me.
More Andrew Scott reviews here.
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no subject
Date: 2014-09-07 09:04 pm (UTC)So, thanks for the review, especially the Andrew Scott bits. I'd forgotten that he was in it as well! How was Ruth Wilson?
no subject
Date: 2014-09-07 10:50 pm (UTC)Ruth Wilson played Katrina, Locke's wife who finds out her husband slept with another woman. After that she was a complete mess, as you might imagine, but never hysterical or anything. It was a bit of an unusual role for her--I didn't recognize her voice at first, actually! Not as fun as, say, Alice Morgan in Luther. But she, Olivia Coleman, and Andrew Scott were all fabulously believable and felt real. :)