Locke, a Lesson for Filmmakers Everywhere

I see . . .  dinosaurs . . .

 T  ired of sequels with big budgets, big actors, cgi-filled scenes with ultra slow-motion photography, 3-D special effects and a story that flows worse than the orgasmic experience one gets while reading the ingredients on the back of a cereal box? Have I got a movie for you!

Take "Bane" from Batman (Tom Hardy), stick him in a moving BMW X5 for 90 minutes and equip him with nothing but his brain, his psyche, and a blue-tooth and what do you get? Movie magic.

Ivan Locke is a construction foreman who is in charge of the biggest concrete pour in Birmingham's history and it is the night before the concrete is to be pumped. A worker with a terrific reputation, he is expected to be there, at the work-site, at 5:25 am, to make sure everything goes according to plan so that construction on a massive 200,000 metric ton building can continue. There's just one problem—Locke's past.

We have all done things we are ashamed of. Most of us run from them, as fast as we can, and we don't look back, unless we are forced to. Not so with our friend Locke. With the exacting mind of an engineer, he thinks there is a solution to every problem and the worst thing one can do is to show weakness and run away. What he has done is not as important as the practical choices he makes to try and rectify the situation.

Despite being filmed almost entirely in a car, Locke's writer/director Steven Knight creates an incredible amount of tension as his main character receives and makes one harrowing phone-call after another in an attempt to deal with his past, the pour, his job, his co-workers, his father, his family, his wife, his kids and a soccer game, as he drives along the highway slowly teetering on the brink of insanity. Tom Hardy is brilliant as he rationalizes his thoughts and organizes them in surgical fashion, justifying them with forceful conviction, trying to find a way to fix his world as it comes crashing down around him. 

There are no other visible actors in the film, only their voices, yet still, we can imagine what each and every one of them look like and feel. No special effects, no complicated story, just a man we can all identify with and root for.

Michael Bay (Transformers 1,2,3), George Miller (Mad Max 1,2,3,4), Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park 2), J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Star Wars), are you watching? This is how you make a movie! 

Locke should be shown to film students everywhere, now, before it's too late! Because if I have to be exposed to more horseshit sequels and remakes, I'm never going to the movies again! 

Catch this on Flexnit.