Review: Locke

Steven Knight's impressionistic pocket film takes 85 minutes to track a successful man's swift sinking into shit.

ARE WE THERE YET?: Locke’s entire run time focuses on the titular character (Tom Hardy) juggling phone calls behind the wheel of his luxury SUV.

City Paper grade: B

There’s massive risk and considerable reward in Steven Knight’s impressionistic pocket film, which takes 85 minutes to track a successful man’s swift sinking into shit. Trained on Tom Hardy behind the wheel of his SUV for the duration of its modest run time, Locke does suffer from its ambition, but its unconventional appeal softens the broken-record visuals. Loading into his vehicle after a long shift at a Birmingham construction site, steady-handed foreman Ivan Locke begins working the hands-free the second he sets off toward London. A paragon of muddy-boot reliability, he shocks his frazzled employee Donal (Andrew Scott) with the news that he won't be attending the next morning’s complex concrete pour, positioned to be the largest undertaking of its kind in European history. Though the revelation sets off a series of panicked, angry calls, there’s no convincing the principled Locke to modify his stance. The long-buried secret keeping him from his work — the one that’s got him convinced his choice is the proper course — is a big one, and it’s something he must reveal to his happy wife Katrina (Ruth Wilson) and two young sons while he speeds toward the big city. His phone’s rapid ringing and the voices on the other end form a three-dimensional understanding of Locke’s professional and personal existence, forming a quick-setting mix of sympathy and resentment that Hardy manipulates with force. Not even Knight’s rapier of a screenplay can prevent the inevitable eye glaze that comes with being stuck in a claustrophobic cockpit from first page to last, but it helps that the guy driving is the sharing sort.