Tag Archives: Tom Hardy

The Drop

‘Cousin Marv’s’ is a Brooklyn bar run and formerly owned by Marv (James Gandolfini) and his cousin Bob (Tom Hardy). The Chechen mob has taken it over for their own devices, often using it as a drop – the designated spot where the city’s dirty money will be stored over the course of an evening.

One night the bar is robbed, and now we’re in trouble. Well, they’re in trouble and we’re vicariously in trouble. In a way, this is just another mob movie. Not nice people doing not nice things to other not so nice people. No heroes, no sympathy. But this one kind of rose above for me because Gandolfini and Hardy are both so damned good in it. It’s slow, moody, dark. And to be honest, they probably had me at ‘Tom Hardy with a puppy.”

Mad Max: Fury Road

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Wow! I was excited going in to Mad Max last night. I was expecting something crazy and strange. I got that, only ten times more crazy and strange than I thought. And that is a very, very good thing.

I saw the three Mel Gibson Mad Maxes a long time ago. I don’t remember much except for snippets (the end of #1, the hockey mask guy and tanker chase in #2, the Thunderdome and a bunch of kids in #3). So your mileage may vary but for me, Tom Hardy more than fills Mel Gibson’s shoes. He is amazing. He only has about ten lines in the whole movie but he really doesn’t need to say anything more for us to know what he’s thinking because we are thinking the exact same thing (usually, “What the hell is happening?”). Max isn’t crazy, he’s us. And together we go on a mind-blowing ride through his world/what’s left of ours.

I really don’t want to say anything more. Just see this movie for yourself. I am not promising you will like it (though if you like seeing shit blow up this has to be the one to see in 2015). But they really threw everything into this and made a spectacle. And it is glorious.

Mad Max: Fury Road earns a well deserved rating of 44 chrome-mouthed trips to Valhalla out of ten.

Locke

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This movie has a forgettable title. I just tried to watch it two days ago and was startled to realize that in fact, I’d already seen it – it’s that Tom Hardy movie that I really liked.

Luc told me to watch this movie, told me he liked it, and liked Tom Hardy in it. Having seen it, I realize those are one and the same. Tom Hardy IS the movie. It’s just him in a car, his movie to make or break, and fortunately, it’s a very good performance.

Basically, you get the impression that this guy is super methodical and exact, but on the eve of some great big event in his career, he gets a phone call that means his whole life is about to unravel. So we, the audience, get in the car with him, and go for a ride. And somehow, during the course of that one little road trip, we come to know Locke fairly well. And maybe that’s true of all of us; we show our true colours when we’re under fire. And this guy’s got some serious fire, but also a bluetooth, and he uses this car ride to try to douse some of the flames. And no matter how hot it gets (okay, I’m going to stop this metaphor now), Locke is calm and precise and quiet. Kudos to Hardy, and to the director (Knight) for placing him so well. It sounds like this movie could feel monotonous but Knight cuts between the different crises to riveting effect.

I thought the ending was weak, and kind of abrupt. You get so invested in this guy it comes as shock that he might actually reach his destination and leave his car. And we get left behind.

What did you think?

This Means War

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I’m not usually one for guilty pleasures; I take a lot of pleasure, and feel very little guilt. But there’s just something about this movie that makes me a) like it, and b) feel bad about liking it.

It’s a romance. There, I said it. It’s an unconventional romance, but still. Reese Witherspoon, who does little to lend the film credibility, plays a product testing executive who loves her job which leaves little time for anything else. But her crazy friend Chelsea Handler signs her up to an online dating site and by the next morning she’s dating not one but two very handsome, very eligible bachelors.

Bachelor #1: a devoted single father, hard-working Tom Hardy. Polite, romantic, safe, sweet.

Bachelor #2: ladies’ man, man about town Chris Pine. Knows all the right movies, uses them liberally.

The catch (there’s always a catch): the two suitors are actually best friends. And also, they’re both CIA.

So when they decide to date her concurrently so that she may pick between them, they of course go off the chain on security details, intel, the works. It’s like dating on steroids – and yet, idiotically, she never notices.

Predictably, she likes them both. And is also overheard reporting on their flaws: Chris Pine’s tiny hands, Tom Hardy’s being, unforgivably, British.

But there’s a charming chemistry between all 3 of them – perhaps most convincingly between the two men (now there’s a movie I’d never feel guilty about loving!). And Chelsea Handler keeps popping up to offer vulgar advice, injecting a Reese Witherspoon movie with a little more edge than usual.

McG’s work is clumsy, but the movie is fun and breezy and a tiny departure from the norm. But really, let’s be honest: Tom Hardy. It’s really just a straight hour and a half of Tom Hardy gazing, with just enough bombs and bullets that, if you’re lucky, your husband won’t even notice what you’re up to.