Steven Knight may have "Peaky Blinders" and a handful of other beloved shows under his belt, but perhaps his most daring venture is a movie about a man in a car. Back in 2013, the writer/director paired up with Tom Hardy for "Locke," a one-person drama that is now considered one of the actor's best movies ever and holds a 91% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes. Heading down a very different kind of fury road, Hardy plays the titular Ivan Locke, the manager of a construction site that's on the verge
of the largest concrete pour in Europe. Faced with the biggest day of his career, Locke suddenly finds his life is falling apart upon learning that a work colleague he had a brief affair with months ago became pregnant and is now going into labor.
With little choice but to give up the job he's been appointed to, Locke drives from London to Birmingham over the course of a night to ensure he's present for the birth. As he does, he's forced to engage in a series of difficult phone calls that include confessing his act of infidelity to his wife, instructing his work colleague on how to manage the job (which he is most certainly going to be fired from), and placating the sons he's forced to disappoint. What sets this catastrophic story apart from others, however, is that the entire tale unfolds from Locke's car, and he's the only person we ever see on screen from the second he gets into the driver's seat until the final exhaustive, life-changing moment he gets out.
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Locke Features One Of Tom Hardy's Best Performances
For the majority of Tom Hardy's career, he has tended to play rather ferocious characters, especially in films like "Bronson," "Warrior," "The Dark Knight Rises," and "Mad Max: Fury Road." With "Locke," however, Hardy is called upon to play a man who's unwaveringly reserved, even as he's pushed to the brink. Having a single person on-camera for an entire film isn't anything new, of course. In fact, there are plenty of great movies where a single actor has to bear their soul alone (or very nearly so) for up to two hours. Still, few of them are quite as riveting to endure as watching Hardy's Locke try to remain calm as he goes on the drive of his nightmares.
Accompanied by the sound of passing cars and the eerie glow of highway street lights, Knight's film somehow turns a series of car phone calls about concrete and missed football matches into a nail-biting experience. Locke isn't some unstoppable super-villain or a dream-invading heist man, he's just a guy trying to put things right and suffering from a pretty mean cold. Sniffling his way through the story, Hardy was legitimately sick during filming (as he confirmed to Out in 2014), which Knight integrated into the movie to better emphasize just how flawed and human the actor's character is. The other medicine he's forced to take, however, comes from a collection of familiar voices on his phone, many of which belong to what are now pretty massive stars.
Olivia Colman, Tom Holland, And Ruth Wilson Come Along For The Ride In Locke
Hardy might be the only person we see on-screen in Knight's film, but "Locke" also features a great voice cast for the characters calling Ivan as he makes his drive from Hell. Among those joining Hardy for the ride are Olivia Colman as Bethan, the woman Ivan had an affair with, and "Luther" and "The Affair" star Ruth Wilson as Locke's wife Katrina, whose life is similarly turned upside down. On top of that, "Locke" might be the closest we'll ever get to seeing Hardy's Eddie Brock and Tom Holland's Peter Parker share the screen, as the latter actor voices Ivan's younger son Eddie, who's just hoping his dad will make it home in time to watch some football with him.
Throw in a frantic turn from "All of Us Strangers" and "Fleabag" star Andrew Scott as Donal, Locke's second-in-command on the worksite he's driving away from, and Knight's road movie makes for a gripping, brilliant watch. Whatever Knight conjures up with his script for Denis Villeneuve's developing James Bond movie, it's hard to imagine him penning a high-speed chase scene for 007 that'll be anywhere near as thrilling as a cold-stricken Hardy in a worn-in sweater trying to battle the sins of his past.
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