Tom Hardy spends eighty-five minutes in a car, talking on a phone, and that is all there is in Locke. It is also all there needs to be. Steven Knight directs and writes the film, and he trusts the audience to sit with a man driving from Birmingham to London as his entire world falls apart.
The setup is simple. Ivan Locke, a construction foreman, is about to oversee the largest concrete pour in European history. Then he gets a call that his mistress, Bethan, is in early labor. Locke knows he should stay. He also knows he will not forgive himself if he does not go. So he gets in his car and starts calling everyone who stands between him and Bethan’s hospital.
Trailer, via A24.
One Man, One Car, Thirty-Six Calls
Knight structures the film as a series of phone conversations. Locke speaks to his boss Gareth, his work trainee Donal, his wife Katrina, his sons Eddie and Sean, the maternity staff, the council head Cassidy, the police officer PC Davids, and Bethan herself. Each call adds pressure. Gareth fires him. Katrina bans him from the house. Eddie asks him to come back. Donal faces major setbacks on the pour. Bethan fights through trouble during labor.
Hardy does not need to act big. He just needs to be exhausted, panicked, and honest. He is. The performance earned him the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor.
The Road Between Birmingham and London
The film runs 85 minutes, and the drive takes two hours. Knight uses that time to strip away everything. There is no music. There is no cutaway to the hospital or the construction site. There is only Locke in his car, talking to people he cannot see.
This is a gamble. It could feel empty. It does not. The car becomes a stage, and the phone becomes a curtain. Every call reveals something new about Locke’s past, his marriage, and his fear of repeating his father’s mistakes.
“No turning back.”
What the Call List Shows
The call list is the film’s spine. Gareth fires him. Katrina bans him. Eddie asks him to come back. Donal faces major setbacks. Bethan fights through trouble. Each call moves the story forward without cutting away from the road.
The film never cuts to the hospital. It never cuts to the construction site. It stays with Locke in his car, which makes the tension tighter rather than weaker.
A One-Man Show That Works
Locke is a quiet film, and it earns its quiet. Knight trusts Hardy to hold the screen alone. Hardy trusts Knight to give him the space. The result is a performance that feels lived-in rather than performed.
The film premiered at the 70th Venice Film Festival on 2 September 2013. It had a limited release in the United Kingdom beginning on 18 April 2014, and grossed $5.1 million worldwide.
Final Word
Locke is a tight, tense, and deeply human film. It does not waste a minute. Every call, every pause, every breath builds toward a payoff that lands because Hardy has carried it all the way there.
The film is not perfect. Some viewers may find the confinement too narrow. Others may want to see the hospital or the construction site. But those impulses are the point. Locke is about a man trapped in his own decisions, and the film traps the viewer alongside him.
The score is 8.3 out of 10.
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