#40 LOCKE

#40 LOCKE

Starring Tom Hardy and featuring the voices of Ruth Wilson, Olivia Colman and Andrew Scott.

85 minutes long, written and directed by Stephen Knight.

On the eve of the biggest cement pour in European history, Welsh, site foreman, Ivan Locke - played by Tom Hardy - climbs into his car and instead of turning left and driving home to watch a football match with his two teenage sons and his wife turns right and heads off down the motorway across England to meet up with a mysterious woman whom we never see, played by Olivia Colman. Along the way he has a series of phonecalls that will change his life forever.

Once in the car the camera never leaves Tom Hardy and indeed his is the only face we see throughout the entire running time of this film. Strangely described as a thriller by some this is rather a drama, a study of a safe, secure, family-man whose life suddenly unravels and he struggles to, not only contain the fallout but also maintain some sort of order.

Watching Tom Hardy for 85 solid minutes struggling to deal with the fall out of his decision in turning right not left, while he argues with a variety of faceless voices and the unseen phantom of his dead father sounds as if it's going to be a rather boring, hard-slog movie and coupled with the fact that a large portion of the film is spent with Hardy remote handling a vast cement pour and your fears would be understood.

However this is anything but a boring film, indeed it's rather gripping and you find yourself swept up into his world and hoping that this seemingly decent man can some how make everything come good in the end, even though we the viewer knows it never can.

The chances are you missed this at the cinema, but fear not! It'll probably work even better at home where the claustrophobic nature of the film will work just as well.

If you're tired of a diet of empty headed, huge spectacle pop-corn blockbusters you could do a lot worse than watching this, always engrossing character study.

Tom Hardy proves again what a brilliant actor he really is.

8/10