Locke

Year 13, Day 8 - 1/8/21 - Movie #3,708

BEFORE: Update on the part-time job search, I handed in my resumé over at the comic-book shop I frequent in Manhattan. Have not heard anything back, which could mean that my file is working its way up the management chain - or possibly there's no interest in hiring a 52-year old with high blood pressure and a hearing aid as a trainee...  Now I'm once again waiting to hear when movie theaters might open up again in NYC, that's my next best shot, as there could be a wave of people hired at that time.  Great job, working in a movie theater, I did it about 30 years ago, nights and weekends, which could work nicely around my day job.  

Tom Hardy carries over from "RocknRolla", and I don't know very much about this film, but from the description on the cable guide it sounds like a gripping crime thriller...

THE PLOT: A dedicated family man and successful construction manager receives a phone call on the eve of the biggest challenge of his career that sets in motion a series of events that threaten his carefully cultivated existence. 

AFTER: Well, I feel pretty ripped off by this one.  The listing on the cable guide made it sound so exciting, like an action film - "A construction expert dashes off the job and races to London!".  SPOILER ALERT, here's the whole plot: Tom Hardy drives a car, and talks on his cell phone with several people during the drive.   That's it. Seriously. Are you kidding me? 

To be fair, there's some drama involved, once you learn WHY he's driving to London.  And WHY he left his post, the night before the biggest concrete pour in U.K. history.  Not to give away too much, but he's about to become a father, for the third time.  So he's in touch with the mother of the child, who's already in the maternity ward in London.  Umm, yeah, so during the drive he's ALSO got to make a pretty awkward call to his wife.

There is more to the story, he's also missing a very important soccer match, which his sons have been looking forward to, and also leaving when he did, HOW he did, probably means that he's about to be fired as well.  BUT, he is in touch with the, umm, assistant construction manager (?) to make sure that everything related to the concrete pour doesn't go tits up, as the Brits say.  

But by and large, this is NOT an action movie, it's a drama set in a confined space, just a car, and it may actually be set in real time, during a drive to London that's about an hour and 20 minutes long.  Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot, metric system.  The drive is...let's see, double it and add 30... 190 metric minutes long, right?  I don't know, I forgot how to convert from U.S. minutes to U.K. kilometers, can you blame me?  

My point is, I'm not sure if Tom Hardy is your guy for this sort of movie.  This guy should be cage-fighting, or trying to blow up Gotham City while fighting Batman, or dealing with an alien symbiote that's trying to take over his body.  If he's got to be driving, it should be across the Australian Outback with a bunch of crazy renegade warriors like Immortan Joe and The Organic Mechanic, not just regular driving on a U.K. highway.  BORING!  I'm just not sure who it was that said, "We need a dramatic actor who can really get into the subtleties of this guy's complicated life - get me Tom Hardy!"

If I'd paid money to see this in a theater, I would be well within my rights to demand a refund.  Things are supposed to HAPPEN in movies, crazy stunts and impossible feats of strength and daring, taking down opposing armies with a RPG, not just following the directions on the car's GPS!  

I thought, maybe there's something more to the story - maybe he's never going to get to London, just like Godot never shows up in "Waiting for Godot" (the play is referenced during the film).  What if he's not really on a highway, maybe he's in purgatory because he cheated on his wife, and he's just going to drive and drive until he eventually forgives himself or finds some form of redemption?  Nope, that's not it, it's just a guy driving to London, and I'm probably overthinking. 

It's mildly interesting, though, that Tom Holland provides the voice of Locke's son, Eddie, one of the many callers that Ivan Locke talks to while driving to London. Holland portrays Spider-Man in the MCU, and Hardy, of course, played Eddie Brock in "Venom", who gets infected with an alien symbiote and becomes Venom, a main enemy of Spider-Man in the comics.  If they ever work out all the legal challenges and get aroudn to making a movie where Spider-Man battles Venom, it could mean these actors would work together in the same movie again. But that very idea is, in itself, more interesting than the entire film "Locke".  

Also starring the voices of Olivia Colman (last seen in "The Favourite"), Ruth Wilson (last seen in "Anna Karenina"), Andrew Scott (last seen in "1917"), Ben Daniels (last seen in "Captive State"), Tom Holland (last heard in "Spies in Disguise"), Bill Milner (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Danny Webb (last seen in "Churchill"), Alice Lowe (last seen in "Paddington"), Silas Carson (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Lee Ross, Kirsty Dillon.

RATING: 4 out of 10 cans of cider