This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Grade • A-
DVD •There are two great talents at work in the thrilling drama "Locke," but you only see one of them.
That's Tom Hardy, familiar as Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises," here playing Ivan Locke, a construction foreman driving away from the biggest job of his career, a massive concrete pour set for the next morning. He's driving to London, 90 minutes away, where a woman with whom he had a one-night stand is having his child — and he's determined to do right by her and the baby.
In conversations on his carphone, Locke must placate his angry bosses, talk a nervous subordinate through the pour, calm the pregnant woman (voiced by Olivia Colman) and confess to his wife (voiced by Ruth Wilson) that he was unfaithful.
Hardy is compelling in this one-man acting assignment, as Locke follows a self-imposed code of honor in spite of the damage it may do him. The offscreen genius here is writer-director Steven Knight, who turns the story's physical limitations into virtues, making the confined space of Locke's BMW into a crucible for his character's rigid ethics and his past demons. List_item —
Jonesing for more PopTop reviews?
For an archive of more CD, video and game reviews, visit http://www.sltrib.com/topics/poptop.