Review: 'Locke' Starring Tom Hardy

Whether he's the center of attention like in his furious breakthrough Bronson; under a mask and unintelligible as in The Dark Knight Rises; or part of the Inception ensemble, it's hard to take one's eyes off of Tom Hardy. More often than not it's Hardy's physical prowess that stands out; he's always had something of an animal presence about him that's undeniable. But no film has asked Hardy to keep the audience’s attention quite like Steven Knight's sterling single-location thriller, Locke, and it makes the case for Hardy as one of the most compelling actors working today.

The single-location film is a tough nut for even the most veteran director, but Knight shows an uncanny confidence in only his second feature behind the camera. Known mainly for his gritty screenplays such as Eastern Promisesand Dirty Pretty Things, Knight shows his precise hand and a ton of guts in guiding a movie set entirely behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. It's a different sort of role for Hardy, as well, one that demands an exacting level of emotional control for his is the only face we're going to see, and one slip up means the whole thing could go astray.

Hardy is Ivan Locke, a top construction expert on the verge of the biggest concrete pour in Europe's history. It will make or break the company he works for, and on the eve it's to take place he hops in his BMW and skips town to London. Understandably, this freaks out his colleagues who are used to relying on the typically dependable Locke, but he's determined to get somewhere important. All we know at first is that it's to see a woman (voiced by Olivia Colman), and it must be that night. We also know that Locke has a family; a wife (Ruth Wilson) who is waiting for him at home and two boys (Tom Holland and Bill Milner) who are anxious for Dad's arrival so they can watch the big soccer match.

But Locke isn't coming home, and it's clear that this man, who seems like a good and decent person, is risking everything to fix a major screw-up. His personal and professional life is at stake through every mile of his journey, and Knight, who also penned the screenplay, ratchets up the tension or flips it around with every phone call Locke receives. It may not sound all that interesting to watch Hardy talk on his car phone for the duration, but Knight smartly doles out just enough new information that nothing stays dormant for long. What becomes obvious is that Locke is a man who has always prided himself on self-control, and a momentary lapse in judgment has shaken his sense of self.  "I'll fix it and it'll all go back to normal", he says with a certainty that borders on delusional. As Locke scrambles to assuage the fears of his nervous assistant, who must now handle the job alone, he must also calm down the woman he's racing towards while trying to hold his family together. The less said about the exact details the better, as Knight and Hardy guide us along deliberately through Locke's soulful journey. There are details revealed about Locke that will constantly alter our perceptions of him and the people who populate his life. His atypical actions have everyone on edge, and they bring us to the edge our seats, too.

It's rare that Locke takes us outside of the vehicle, but when he does the gorgeous, nocturnal cinematography only deepens the mood; sinking us further into Locke's plight. It's amazing how much one can learn about a man in a scant 90 minutes, but we know everything about Locke by the time the movie is done. All of his failings and strengths laid bare for us to see and judge; we know why he seems so eager to make hard decisions regardless of the personal cost. Where the story skids off the road is during Locke's imagined conversations with his deadbeat father. They seem like overkill, making a point about Locke's character that Hardy is more than capable of getting across. His performance here is understated, controlled, and he owns every single moment.

Other than a few false notes, Locke is impressively bold; as thrilling as it is resonant. If nothing else it marks daring new territory for Hardy and Knight alike.

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Tom Hanks Is Walt Disney In First Trailer for 'Saving Mr. Banks'

Disney pretty much has all of its Oscar bases covered with Saving Mr. Banks. Not only is the story interesting and relevant to the Mouse House, following Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers and her rocky relationship with Walt Disney, but it also has quite an assemblage of talent in front of and behind the camera. Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Paul Giamatti, Colin Farrell, Jason Schwartzman, and Ruth Wilson are all on board, with The Blind Side director John Lee Hancock at the helm. It all amounts to a film that seems ready-made for a Best Picture nomination, but is it perhaps a little too safe and comfortable?

After the first image dropped a couple of day ago, we know have the trailer for Saving Mr. Banks, and while it's definitely a charmer, it's also more than a little sappy and manufactured. Hanks plays the legendary Mouse House founder, who fought with Travers to let his studio adapt Mary Poppins to the big screen, but she's reluctant because the character of Mr. Banks is based on her own father, and she considers the story extremely special. Speaking of special, the trailer goes a little overboard in trying to get across just how important Walt Disney was, but there's no denying Hanks looks great in the role, and he has strong chemistry with Thompson.

The last film similar to this was 2004's J.M. Barrie biopic, Finding Neverland, which was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor for Johnny Depp. Could Saving Mr. Banks replicate that success? We'll find out when it opens on December 13th.

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Ruth Wilson and Margot Robbie Join Michelle Williams In 'Suite Francais'

Two actresses definitely making big moves this year are Margot Robbie and Ruth Wilson, but they're doing it in two completely different sorts of films. Wilson can currently be seen in theaters longing for Armie Hammer in The Lone Ranger, while Robbie hangs out with a madcap Leonardo DiCaprion in The Wolf of Wall Street. She also has a role in Richard Curtis' sci-fi romance About Time. But now they're coming together in what looks like a potential Oscar contender.

Deadline reports that Wilson and Robbie, along with Alexandra Maria Lara have joined WWII drama, Suite Francais. Adapted by Saul Dibb (The Duchess) and starring Michelle Williams, Matthias Schoenaerts, Sam Riley, and Kristin Scott Thomas, the story centers on the difficult relationship between a young French woman and a German officer in Nazi-occupied France. Lara, who also happens to be Riley's wife, has appeared with him in Control, and will be seen next in Ron Howard's Rush.

Suite Francais is expected to open in 2014.

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Review: 'The Lone Ranger', Starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer

Disney doesn't put the Pirates of the Caribbean think tank on just any ol' thing. When the combination of Johnny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Gore Verbinski get together it’s with the intention of crafting another $1B franchise, and that's exactly what the hopes for The Lone Ranger are. And hey, maybe Disney will get what they want, because there's very little difference to be found between either. Depp does good quirk, Verbinski does big action, the jokes are plentiful but not necessarily funny, the running time is 40 minutes too long, and despite being an origin story on the iconic Western hero you'll still be asking "Who was that masked man?" when all is said and done.

The chief problem makes itself known immediately, as the film opens in 1933 San Francisco, a precocious young boy dressed as the titular ranger makes his way through a traveling circus, coming upon an old Native American exhibit. The Indian mannequin turns out to be very much alive, an aged Tonto (Depp) as it turns out, and who takes the opportunity to recount his very first meetings with The Lone Ranger and their earliest adventures. Bouncing back and forth to this older Tonto does to the film's pacing what a broken hoof would do to the Ranger's horse, Silver. Already saddling us with a bloated 2 1/2 runtime, the non-linear approach makes it feel like 3 1/2, without adding anything of worth.

Not that it would have mattered much because the meat of the story...well, there isn't much meat to it and what little is there is painfully dull. Justin Haythe is credited with the script but it's really 'Pirates' scribes Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott whose fingerprints are all over it, and storytelling really isn't their bag. Depp was able to cover up the emptiness of their writing when Jack Sparrow was still a totally unique character, but his Tonto is so familiar that it's not going to hide anything. In his leading man bid, Armie Hammer is naive lawman John Reid, who returns to his southwest hometown where his brother Dan (a ruggedly charismatic James Badge Dale) is the baddest Texas Ranger in town. After he's killed by the heart-munching Butch Cavendish (a filthy and gross William Fichtner), John teams up with the eccentric and clearly insane Tonto to get justice. But what does justice mean for someone like John? His brother had a "shoot first" approach to the legal process, and Tonto certainly has his own ideas, but John's journey will have him changing his thoughts on due process in a major way.

You can feel the strains of franchise building in the relationship between The Lone Ranger and Tonto. It's the latter who we learn the most about, delving into his past in a way that has never been done before. It's mildly interesting to discover why he wears a dead bird on his head, which he constantly is feeding for some goofy reason, and why he's such a proponent for vigilante justice. But the further they go back, the more Tonto looks like a psycho rather than a guy with an off brand sense of humor. The distinction matters, and there are far too many moments where Tonto is more disturbing than funny. He still gets better treatment than the Ranger, who we learn almost nothing about other than that he once had a thing for his dead brother's widow (Ruth Wilson), and she still has one for him.  Wait, isn't this movie called The Lone Ranger? Shouldn't it maybe be about him? Just a little? Mostly we get the Ranger and Tonto jumping from one sticky situation to another, with lots of stuff happening but little of it engaging. There's some good comedic mileage out of Tonto's utter lack of respect for the Ranger, who he feels should have died and his brother Dan resurrected.

Hammer plays the straight man beautifully opposite Depp, most of the film walking a line between professorial pantywaist and the dashing hero we know he'll turn out to be. Depp's deadpan interpretation of Tonto sounds like it was ripped from old episodes of Daniel Boone, and those who openly complained about his being cast in the role (Depp claims Native American heritage that hasn't been proven) will probably find reason to take issue. Fortunately there are better portrayals that emerge later in the film, at least for a few minutes before white man greed interferes with their simple way of life. Women are basically a non-factor in this masculine Old West world, with Wilson having little to do but be a potential target for the Ranger's enemies. Most egregiously, Helena Bonham Carter is completely wasted as a brothel owner who gives new meaning to the phrase "killer legs".

Tonally a nightmare, broad comedy clashes with a subplot involving the white man's slaughter of the Native American population. There's a great deal of violence, more gruesome than one would expect from a Disney film, and sometimes it's played up for laughs when other times we're expected to find it sobering. A lot of this can be forgiven because everything looks so damn good, easily the best work Verbinski has done, and it's clear he took his experience directing the brilliant animated western Rango and put it to good use. Everything looks authentic and gorgeous, from the saddlebags to the tumbleweeds, captured beautifully with an incredible level of attention. Verbinski pushed the budget well past its limit, and it shows in two amazing bookend train sequences. The opening scene promises adventure on a massive scale that we never truly get. The final one, a dizzying dual-track battle set to The Lone Ranger's iconic William Tell Overture, ends the film on an exquisitely energetic note.

What it boils down to is that this is meant to be the first chapter in a bigger story, and unfortunately it was written like one. Overlong and needlessly convoluted, The Lone Ranger lacks the adventure needed to make the 1930s radio and TV hero a modern day action star.

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Johnny Depp Not Signed For 'The Lone Ranger' Sequels Yet; Talks Up Next Project

There's no doubt that Disney is hoping The Lone Ranger will turn out to be a franchise on the same level as Pirates of the Caribbean. They've certainly dumped enough money into it, reportedly well over $200M, and have all of the same key players in place. So it's not surprising to learn that most of the cast are signed on for sequels. What is surprising is the one who isn't locked in just yet.

While talking to E! Online, Armie Hammer revealed that he is signed on for a "couple" more movies as the titular gunslinging Texas Ranging. Co-star Ruth Wilson, who plays the widow of the Ranger's brother, admits to being bound for three films in total. Johnny Depp, on the other hand, has yet to put ink on a multi-picture deal...

Depp: "I think it was a one-shot deal."

He did go on to add that he'd "be ready to go in a second" if a sequel was green lit, but Disney would have to shell out a lot of cash, which could make the bean counters antsy considering the budget woes they went through last time.

Even though he already has two other franchises pushing ahead with Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and an Alice In Wonderland sequel, Depp is possibly looking to add one more. While talking with Buzzsugar, he talked about adapting Kyril Bonfiglioli's The Great Mortdecai Mustache Mystery, the final book in his quirky Mortdecai Trilogy. He hopes to make it his next project, probably after he's done fulfilling other obligations, but it's likely a ways off as there's no writer or director attached at this point.  It would be another offbeat role for Depp, playing wealthy art dealer Charlie Mortdecai, who has a lust for the finer things in life and often investigates strange unresolved crimes. Here's the plot synopsis straight from Amazon, and it sounds like something Depp could possibly reteam with Tim Burton on....

Kyril Bonfiglioli’s final novel follows the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai from adventure to misadventure via Jersey and Moscow to a final showdown in a Buckinghamshire bungalow of unparalleled hideousness. 

 Tackling en route an unhealthy sprinkling of well-seasoned academics, a cryptic monk, an aristocratic Chief Constable, and more spies than you could shoehorn into a black stretch limo, Mordecai finds himself embroiled in another mission of international insecurity.

The Lone Ranger hits theaters on July 3rd.

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Sure Shots: The Lone Ranger; Paul Rudd; Chris Pine wanted for Robocop reboot?

* Shooting on director Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp's The Lone Ranger is set to begin in just a couple of months, but casting is still pretty shallow. Depp has been down as Tonto for ages, and Armie Hammer is set to play the masked gunslinger. Tom Wilkinson is in talks for a role, but where the ladies at? Deadline reports that Ruth Wilson, best known for her role in the Idris Elba crime procedural, Luther, has won the prime female role. She beat out both Jessica Chastain(The Tree of Life) and Abbie Cornish(Sucker Punch) for the gig.

* Paul Rudd has joined famed documentarian Errol Morris's adaptation of We Froze the First Man, based on Robert Nelson's memoir. Nelson was president of the Cryogenics Society of California, and took part in the first use of cryogenics to freeze a recently deceased human being. The story will also draw from a story featured on This American Life. The show's host, Ira Glass, is on board as a producer. Zach Helm(Stranger Than Fiction) wrote the script. [The Washington Post]

* Chris Pine(Star Trek, Unstoppable) is apparently at the top of MGM's wishlist to star in their upcoming Robocop reboot. Part of their pre-packaged plan of rehashing all of their popular 80s flicks, they made a smart move in signing Jose Padilha(Elite Squad 2) to direct. Pine is probably never going to be more in demand than he is right now, so signing him could be a smart move. However this is all speculation, and no deals have been made. I'm sure Pine's name is just one of many under consideration. [Twitch]

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