Review: Locke, starring Tom Hardy, is one of the year’s most successful film experiments

REVIEW: One man, one car and very little action, yet Locke is one of the year’s most successful film experiments.

Scene of Tom Hardy in Locke. Madman Films.

BUY a ticket to this minimalist curio, and you won’t be getting a movie for your money.

But you will be getting one heck of a stunt performance, executed by a technically accomplished actor at the very peak of his powers.

Here is a complete list of all there is to Locke. No need to get a pen and paper.

Tom Hardy. A car. A mobile phone.

There is no timed explosive device in the boot. No mad, serial-killing truckie chasing him down the highway. No speed limits are broken.

Ready for the ride of his life ... Tom Hardy stars in Locke.

What passes for an action scene here is the sudden need to turn on the windscreen wipers.

Instead, across the lengthy sequence of phone calls that Hardy makes and takes throughout Locke, an unnerving portrait of a man on a one-way journey to possible oblivion gradually takes shape.

Hardy plays Ivan, a Birmingham construction foreman who has walked offsite at a crucial juncture, got inside his vehicle, and started speeding towards London.

Just why Ivan — a calm, clear-thinking type — is putting his job, marriage and maybe even his sanity at risk is not for me to reveal.

Unsure of the end ... Tom Hardy in a scene from the movie Locke.

That’s the job of Hardy’s hyper-nuanced performance, and his instinctive choices of when to truly act or merely react all prove to be correct.

This is not 2014’s most inviting movie experience, but it will stand as one of the year’s most successful movie experiments.

Director: Steven Knight (Redemption)

Starring: Tom Hardy

3 stars

Originally published as Review: Locke, starring Tom Hardy, is one of the year’s most successful film experiments