The last round-up of the year – everything finished will have been accounted for and posts from now on will be in real time. Which is nice. I may also do a couple of favourites posts but will see – depends on how full I am after eating all of the Christmas food.
Anyway – to the movies!
Ivan Locke, a dedicated family man and successful construction manager, receives a phone call on the eve of the biggest challenge of his career that sets in motion a series of events that threaten his carefully cultivated existence
Tom Hardy is a compelling presence and I have enjoyed most of the films in which he has starred, but I was a bit wary of watching something in which he is the only physical presence; the remainder of the admittedly excellent cast is voice only. But I needn’t have been concerned – Hardy delivers an excellent performance as a man who is used to having all aspects of his life under tight control finding himself having to watch it all unravel as he tries to do the right thing.
It’s an odd but well made little film that turned out to be very different from what I expected. It’s a sad and compelling but not hopeless story, which could have done without the subplot of Locke’s Dad but otherwise delivers a very human situation. And of course, as someone who spent the bulk of their civil service career in procurement, I was most fascinated by the bits focussing on the concrete pour and project management with a side order of where was their contingency plan. I also had to check that Tom Hardy wasn’t Welsh as I thought his accent was pretty spot on.
Worth watching.
Deets: Directed by Steven Knight, Locke is 85 minutes long and rated 15 for very strong language
Mr B spotted this one early on and who am I to deny him the opportunity to see it? I admit I was also intrigued.
Set in riot-torn near-future Los Angeles, follows the Nurse who runs a secret members-only emergency room for criminals
So as I said above this sounded very promising, but it didn’t really deliver on that promise. It’s probably deeply unfair to compare it to the John Wick franchise but given the subject matter, it couldn’t be helped.
In terms of casting, Jodie Foster and Sterling K Brown were both very good indeed, and Dave Bautista continues to delight. A star-turn cameo by Jeff Goldblum at his most Goldblmiest was also very entertaining, as was Zachary Quinto as his very shouty son.
A couple of the sub-plots didn’t really add anything to the storyline, and one was clearly just a convenient plot device. Having said all that, I really wouldn’t mind watching it again.
Deets: Directed by Drew Pearce, Hotel Artemis is 94 minutes long and rated 15 for (takes deep breath) strong language, bloody violence, injury detail and drug misuse.
Bride of the Book God 2 
Aw, I’m disappointed that Hotel Artemis wasn’t great. I haven’t seen John Wick still because I know the dog’s going to die, and I don’t want to see a good dog die. (Even though I understand he gets another dog later.)
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