The underrated Tom Hardy movie Ron Howard loves
Tom Hardy has played some memorable roles in his career, but he will be lucky if ever tops the one in this underrated thriller that Ron Howard loves.
(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Film Âť Cutting Room Floor
Sat 18 January 2025 9:30, UK
Tom Hardy has scored some major blockbuster successes in his career, including a string of Christopher Nolan movies. Heâs starred in Mad Max: Fury Road, Warrior, and went all-in on Venom. Heâs even tried his hand at critically acclaimed drama with Jeff Nicholsâ 2024 film, The Bikeriders. The throughline of his characters is extreme intensity, which has made him the perfect fit for action movies and gangster roles.
Although Hardy has achieved A-list celebrity status in recent years and earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in 2015âs The Revenant, there is one director who doesnât think heâs been granted the respect that he is due, and for one film in particular. In a 2015 âAsk Me Anythingâ Reddit thread, Ron Howard was asked if there were any recently released movies that he felt had gone unfairly under the radar.Â
After singing the praises of Alex Garlandâs sci-fi flop Ex Machina, Howard wrote, âThereâs another one called Locke starring Tom Hardy, which is a great movie and I really thought that he should have gotten awards attention for that performance.âÂ
It isnât just Hardy fans who would agree with him. Directed by Steven Knight, who went on to cast the actor in his hit series Peaky Blinders, Locke makes ingenious use of the actorâs innate intensity. He plays Ivan Locke, a construction foreman who discovers that a woman with whom he had a brief affair is pregnant and going into premature labour.
Despite being a devoted husband and the father of two sons, he decides to drive from Birmingham to London to be there for the birth, putting aside the time-sensitive job heâs working on and missing out on the evening he had planned with his family. Throughout the drive, he has several dozen phone calls with his wife, his boss, the woman who is going into labour, her medical team, and his co-workers, building to a fever pitch so nail-biting it puts Mission: Impossible to shame.
The genius of the film is that almost all of it takes place within the confines of the car and with the camera trained on Hardy. It also avoids unnecessary drama, eschewing life-and-death stakes to focus on a man who is desperately trying to right his past wrongs and be the man his father never was. Itâs one of the most exciting thrillers of the decade and a flawless showcase of Hardyâs dramatic skills. Few other actors could portray the anguish, rage, love, and desperation that he does throughout the film, with only the voices on the other end of the phone as co-stars.
Itâs exactly the kind of performance that deserves an Oscar, and exactly the kind of performance that never wins one. Despite having a set-up that lives or dies on a single performance, it doesnât have the showiness that many Oscar-baity roles do. Made on a shoestring budget of $2million, it earned back $5million, which was far less than it deserved.Â
The film went all but unnoticed when awards season rolled around, though it was nominated for âBest Actorâ at the British Independent Film Awards and won for âBest Screenplay.â Hardy earned his first and as-yet only Oscar nomination two years later, but he has yet to top his performance in Locke.
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Ron HowardTom Hardy