LOCKE 

Cast: Tom Hardy, Olivia Colman, Andrew Scott

Writer/Director: Steven Knight

83 mins

British second-time director Steven Knight here offers a quite ingenious thriller shot solely in one location; the inside of a car. Welsh construction manager Ivan Locke, played by Tom Hardy, seems to have an ideal existence. Happily married with a loving family, an extremely good and highly responsible job, the total respect of his employers, colleagues and team - with tomorrow about to be his working zenith, as he completes the biggest concrete filling project in Europe's history. One call comes in though which forces him to make a monumental decision which will jeopardise everything. We see Locke driving, when he takes this life-changing phone call revealing that in a very short space of time he is about to become a father once again – not with his wife, but with a woman he had sex with once and afterwards never saw again. His decision is that he will do what he feels is morally correct and thus begins a tortuous, tense drive to the maternity wing of the hospital.

Shot almost as a theatre production, at night and by Knight, he affixed three Red Epic cameras, which consistently ran the entire piece several times within a week for the desired editing material and subsequent effect. It has an enormously affecting and compelling screenplay dealing with what would be to many, a tedious business – building and concrete. The whole thing is held together to absolute perfection by a performance of unerring poise, precision and brilliance by the exemplary actor Tom Hardy. All the dialogue consists of the protagonist simply receiving and answering telephone calls and we see none of the other actors at all - only Hardy playing the title character in a car handling the full gamut of possible emotions all of which emanate from one momentous decision. Hardy's role expands this potential claustrophobia with delusional conversations involving his late dad’s spirit in the back seat of the car. 

Is Locke manifestly crazy or deranged? Why is he maintaining contact with his workplace, family - and his departed father who deserted him long ago - and is the latter the reason for throwing it all away, to be with a woman he can’t and doesn’t love, for a baby he didn’t know about before now? Ivan is in some ways flawed, being single-minded and selfish, but he is also very loving, extremely focused and still highly responsible. This is an exceptionally accomplished film, beautifully composed, written and directed - and with a sublime lead performance.


The Love Punch 

Cast: Emma Thompson, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie

Writer/Director: Joel Hopkins

95 mins

If you’re the type who spends an insane amount of money on an obscene dustbin-size portion of popcorn, a grotesque platter of hideous nachos and a barrel of cola at the kiosk beforehand - with no regard for your fellow filmgoers' sense of ease or relaxation as you slobber and munch throughout a screening, this is for you. The reason being that what appears on the screen is insufferably puerile, dismal and dreadful in every respect. SoThe Love Punch will most likely be right up the street of your average Mr or Mrs Cretin.

Emma Thompson and Brosnan play a divorced couple, acrimoniously separated after he left her for a younger woman. Initially, they both seem happy in that nauseatingly smug way of those in the woe-free extravagant upperclass lifestyle world, when suddenly, Brosnan’s investment firm is bankrupted by a dodgy Frenchman, crippling both him, his ex-wife and their chum couple (Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie) of all their assets. So up pops the idea of simply confronting their slimy dosh-snaffling nemesis (Laurent Lafitte) and his oblivious gorgeous fiancée (Louise Bourgoin) on the Riviera. No consideration whatsoever of the logistics nor the financial implications - but then we’re in middle-upper-class nevernever land, where mere trifles such as reality have no place.

What little inspiration there is, seems to have been mercilessly plundered in this travesty, from the Dreaded Book of Film Dialogue, Set-up and Acting Cliches - with Pierce Brosnan announcing the squirm-inducing ‘let’s do this’ line, before all four lead actors don their respective shades and move off in a horizontal line in slow motion – yes really – and, hell’s teeth, he says it twice. 

Later, we bear witness to the quartet as they emerge dressed head-to-toe in black scuba gear (they just happened to have it all with them), on their way to a celebrity wedding where they intend to steal a diamond necklace worth £10m, which the groom has given to the bride. Spall even shoots off a gun in a Paris restaurant, but no charges as brought, as conveniently, the manager was 'in the Legion' with him and owes him a favour.  The sheer twaddle of this guff is jaw-dropping - and that's not even the worst example.

The culprit to be blamed for this drivel is one Joel Hopkins, who directed Thompson in 2008’s Last Chance Harvey which at least kept the hammy self-aware over-acting in check. But this time he offers up a piece of self-indulgent imbecilic drivel which shows no respect whatsoever to filmgoers. 

Astonishingly we here have a cast of usually exceptionally fine actors, who have no doubt trousered a hefty pay cheque and in the process dispensed with artistic integrity, as all make complete fools of themselves with no sense of irony whatsoever. Get this. To reach the baddy, Thompson and Brosnan repeatedly Skype their college-age son for his assistance in computer hacking, all of which is a breeze for this apparent technogenius, as he sorts it out in a heartbeat - initially passwords, then much more sophisticated illegal shenanigans. It's just another example from many (I can’t summon up the energy to quote any more) of utterly lazy writing, manifestly bereft of any creativity.

Hopkins' writing is bad enough, but his direction is also uninspired, laboured and amateurish, as is the continuity (see opening scene at the bar). The entire film is a total disgrace, and one of which all concerned should be deeply ashamed.