Locke (Steven Knight)

[Spinal]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/locke-tom-hardy-poster_zps4176ea60.jpg

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2692904/)

[Spinal]

This is well worth seeing, although the conceit of having the film consist entirely of conversations from within a moving car does occasionally become repetitive. Hardy makes it work with a nuanced, heartfelt performance and the film is short enough to pack a punch without overstaying its welcome too long. By the end, I was genuinely moved and ripped up a bit by the character's emotional journey.

Hardy will be a Match Cut award nominee, to be sure.

[Ezee E]

Hardy gives it his all, but I thought this was quite boring. It's basically just a man having phone conversations about the breakup of his family, and how he fucked up at work, and is trying to remedy it at the last minute.

There's nothing really on the line here to me that can't be solved outside of the car.

[Peng]

Story and conceit are too flimsy at times, especially in the awful moments of "ghost-dad" speeches, which are the stuff that even Daniel Day-Lewis might not be able to elevate. Tom Hardy is great though, and by the end his character's arc rises to the same level as his performance.

[Morris Schæffer]

Surprised at how deep this went and how much it moved me. The acting is great, but another strength is the length. At 84 minutes this flew by and needn't be longer at all.

Its biggest strength is that it trusts its simple premise and single location enough not to stuff it full of implausible thriller-like contrivances. See the Stephen Dorff thriller "Brake" for that.

What a character Ivan Locke is. Who the hell would make a 'call' like this? Few would, but he has and I sat there admiring the hell out of him.

What helps here is the implication that the pain goes a lot deeper than merely "I was perfectly happy and now I made this crazy ass decision". Stuff just comes to the surface.

[Spinal]

Hardy will be a Match Cut award nominee, to be sure.

Yeah, I don't think that happened.

[Melville]

Yeah, I don't think that happened.
I think it's his best performance.

[Dukefrukem]

I watched this tonight because everyone was talking about it recently. But wow. How scripty was it that the phone just rings immediately after every call? Otherwise there would be pockets of silence. It felt very structured with the father arguments. How many times do you let your phone ring before answering it in the car? For me it's .5 seconds. Probably nothing i'd ever watch again, but I'm always interested in scripts that take place in one area. Locke, Phonebooth, ATM, Frozen may not be the best movies- but the dialog alone is always impressive to me.

[Morris Schæffer]

I watched this tonight because everyone was talking about it recently. But wow. How scripty was it that the phone just rings immediately after every call? Otherwise there would be pockets of silence. It felt very structured with the father arguments. How many times do you let your phone ring before answering it in the car? For me it's .5 seconds. Probably nothing i'd ever watch again, but I'm always interested in scripts that take place in one area. Locke, Phonebooth, ATM, Frozen may not be the best movies- but the dialog alone is always impressive to me.

The father moments were probably the parts I could have done without. As for the phone thing, I just saw it as one of those times when Murphy's law rears its ugly head. It was just pandemonium, not something that would occur during every car ride.

[kuehnepips]

Yeah, I don't think that happened.

A shame.