Rating :   72/100                                                                       85 Min       

An extremely focused and potent film about consequences and responsibility. The entirety of this film takes place within the car of Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) as he drives away from work and not to home as usual, but to deal with the long shadow cast by some of his previous actions. Although it does not explicitly say so for a little while, it’s fairly obvious from the beginning that this event is the birth of an unplanned for child, one that Locke’s loving wife and current two sons do not know about. We learn the central character has issues of abandonment with regards to his own father, and so he makes several potentially life changing decisions as events pile on top of one another – he was due to pour the largest amount of concrete in Europe ever the following morning and has to prep someone else to do it via phone, for example, and he is partly forced and partly decides for himself that the time has come to confront everything.

The way we hear all of this play out via hands free phone conversations as he’s driving works really well, and it’s quite heart breaking listening to some of the reactions. Hardy is wonderful in the role, sporting a Welsh accent here, one with echoes of Bane in the background which kind of fits with his first name of Ivan, and both he and the script hold and carry interest from beginning to end, resulting in a captivating and meaningful drama.

I shan’t list the names of the actors in voice support as it’s actually better not to match faces to them as you watch the film. Movies that concentrate on only one or two characters in restricted settings are usually always worth watching – see the original ‘Sleuth’ (72), ‘Closet Land’ (91) and ‘Buried’ (10).