Locke.

The biggest concrete pour in Europe and one man in a BMW X5 driving from Birmingham to London does not sound like the ideal ingredients for an exciting and tension fuelled movie.  But you would be wrong. The man is Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy), and Ivan is the site manager responsible for supervising a concrete pour that will be the largest of its kind in Europe outside of military contracts. If the pour goes wrong then millions of pounds could be at stake. On the eve of this crucial process Ivan leaves the site in his beemer to join his wife (Ruth Wilson voice) of 15 years and his two sons to watch an important football match on the television. Then he receives a phone call from Bethan (Olivia Colman voice), a 43 year old co-worker who he had sex with seven months ago and has not heard from since, she informs him that she has gone into premature labour and wants him at the birth which is to take place in a London hospital.  Ivan Locke has a decision to make, does he go home, watch the football with his family and get back to site in the morning to supervise the concrete or does he turn onto the motorway and head south.

 

Tom Hardy as Ivan Locke.

Writer and director Steven Knight (Hummingbird 2013)[1] documents Ivan’s journey south to support a woman he barely knows at the detriment of his family and his career. No other characters appear in the film with the entire dialog taking place over Ivan’s hands free telephone in his BMW. The tension builds when Ivan juggles his phone time between telling his wife that he has been unfaithful and arranging for the mornings work to be carried out by his rather insecure assistant Donal (Andrew Scott voice) who for the very first time is expected to inspect the pumps, check the shuttering and carry out the all important slump test’s with the explicit instructions ‘if its like piss send it back’.

 

The main source of dialog.

The emotional story is of a man that looses everything he holds dear but gains something that’s as precious as life it self: his self respect culminating with the gift of childbirth. Narratively we concentrate on one person and the human condition where a decent man can make just one mistake that can change everything. We all at one time could have to make life changing decisions which will effect ourselves and the people we love but hopefully not in such a traumatic way as illustrated in Knights movie.

 

The real star- a BMW X5?

Heavily reliant on the acting of Tom Hardy, who gives one of his best performances to date, to keep our interest, Locke (2013) works really well and the Director of Photography Hans Zambarloukos, who was responsible for the wonderful Venus (2006), captures the feel of driving down the motorway after dark, almost bringing Kraftwerk’s 22 minute track Autobahn to life. The filming took place in real time as the BMW was transported on a flat backed truck down the motorway on the outskirts of London.  Ignore the negative critiques and make your own mind up but I’m sure you will agree that this is a very worthwhile attempt at something slightly different in the world of cinema.

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[1] Steven Knight is best known as a screenwriter on films such as Eastern Promises (2007) and Dirty Pretty Things (2002)  and created and wrote TV’s Peaky Blinders.

The Lone Ranger.

Sometimes it pays to ignore the critics. A case in point is the latest movie from the ‘Pirate’ partnership of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski and of course Johnny Depp. If I had listened to other people I would never have seen The Lone Ranger (2013) a film that turned out to be very entertaining and humorous, in fact it was laugh out loud funny due to Depp’s natural comedic skills. 

 

The indian and  the spirit horse.

The movie is a revamp of a TV series of the same name that I loved to watch as a wee lad, one who was in love with any thing to do with westerns: comic books, films and on the TV, which in the past never ignored the genre. This American TV series ran from 1947 to 1954 and continued beyond these dates because of continuous reruns on British TV, well after the series finished in the States. The most famous incarnation was with Clayton Moore playing the masked man in a total of 169 episodes. John Hart followed him in the remaining 52, episodes that have hardly seen the light of day since their first release. Jay Silverheels played Tonto, the Lone Rangers constant companion, in 217 episodes.

 

The Villain.

The unscrupulous railway tycoon.

In the latest outing of this classic western Depp plays the Comanche Indian Tonto who takes credit as the inspiration behind the invention of the masked avenger and crime fighter. It’s also Tonto, as an old man, who relates the story to a young boy, how John Reid, a man of the law, was transformed into the legend of justice. Armie Hammer, who played both the Winklevoss Twins in The Social Network (2010), is the latest actor to play the man that brought justice to America’s old west and he does it with just the right amount of laid-back panache always making the audience think perhaps Reid is not quite the right man for the job but with the help of the white ‘spirit’ horse we all know as Silver, an enormous white Stetson and of course constant advise from an Indian with a well fed dead crow on his head he can’t go wrong, or can he?  They have to pit themselves against a great villain in the form of Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), a ruthless and cannibalistic outlaw, whom Tonto believes is a wendigo.[1] Tom Wilkinson plays Latham Cole an unscrupulous railroad tycoon, the brilliant Ruth Wilson plays Johns love interest and ex sister in law Rebecca Reid (you will know Wilson from playing the wonderfully murderous Alice Morgan in the TV series Luther). James Badge Dale plays John Reid’s brother Dan and of course we must not forget the lethal ivory-legged brothel madam Red Harrington played with style by Helena Bonham Carter.

 

The love interest.

The ivory legged madam. 

A wee warning, on seeing this picture you must not take it too seriously, just as the TV series was always very tongue in cheek so is the movie version. I think the critics took the whole thing far too seriously, but it’s not, its just great fun and never boring. Enjoy.

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[1] A demonic half-beast creature appearing in the legends of the Algonquian peoples along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada. The creature or spirit could either possess humans or be a monster that had physically transformed from a person. It is particularly associated with cannibalism. The Algonquian believed those who indulged in eating human flesh were at particular risk; the legend appears to have reinforced the practice of cannibalism as a taboo. It is often described in Algonquian mythology as a balance of nature.