The invention of the motion picture and the motor car seem to have been a self-combusting occurrence.
Symbiotic twins that spawned mass market industries, kino and the car have been inseparable on our screens for over a century.
Whether it’s Hoke charmingly chauffeuring Miss Daisy or Bullit screaming through the streets of San Francisco, the vehicle has been the vehicle of a myriad of memorable movies.
The latest addition of wheeling the reel is LOCKE, a startlingly supercharged piece of cinema that marries the mobile to the motion, a Bluetooth cut to the chase movie with a mesmerising performance by Tom Hardy.
Locke is a rock solid character, his job in concrete construction cementing just how strong and solid he is.
A family man, a good provider, methodical and meticulous, his life and career belie the fact that his early life had a rocky foundation, with a father who abrogated and abandoned his foreman of the family duties, a substructure that is the driving impetus in the decision to jeopardise everything he has built.
Phoning a performance in is a desultory term, usually, but in LOCKE, Tom Hardy’s multi-faceted, focused portrayal of Ivan Locke, a man under immense pressure as he talks to family, colleagues, and others as he motors down the highway through the night towards London, is gob-smackingly engaging.
LOCKE is set almost entirely in a car. Ivan’s is the only face we see; the other characters are the voices at the other end of his sometimes angry, sometimes funny, often shattering telephone calls. The backdrop is a hypnotic vista of motorway lights, illuminating Ivan’s face as well as the demons he is battling and the choices he is making.
One of the interesting choices of the film is to make Ivan a Welshman, marrying the mellifluous and melodic and embedding it with the mesmeric visuals created by cinematographer, Haris Zambarloukos.
Writer Steven Knight already has a substantial string of screenplays to his credit – Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises, and Amazing Grace to name a few – and with LOCKE he not only cements his credentials as one of top script writers in filmdom but solidifies his emergence as a director of daring and imagination.
Lock into LOCKE – it’s a ride you’ll long remember.
