Harry Brown

Studio: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Directed by Daniel Barber; Starring: Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer

May 21, 2010 By Iain Stasukevich Web Exclusive
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Harry Brown (Michael Caine) is an ex-Royal Marine octogenarian living in South London's version of the projects (called "the estates"), where the local youths' idea of a fun time is smoking crack and dropping bags of flaming dog crap through people's letterboxes. After a feeble attempt at self-defense ends the life of his only friend (a crotchety old pensioner played by David Bradley), and the detective inspectors assigned to the case hit a wall in their investigation, Brown decides to take matters into his own hands.

Caine's Harry Brown lacks the righteous zeal of Charles Bronson's Paul Kersey in Death Wish. He'd rather knock back a pint and play a quiet game of chess, but he ends up sticking a scumbag with his own knife, and it all just goes downhill for the bad guys from there. Brown is too old to Jason Bourne his way through the criminal element, so he contents himself with psyching them out while systematically working his way to the top. Why would anyone be afraid of some tired old man with emphysema? Oh right, he just shot that guy through the head from 50 feet away.

While Brown may be handicapped by the dulled physicality of a retired soldier (he nearly bumbles his first big takedown), he's a man with sharp killer instincts. The violence is somewhat overstated and occasionally threatens to drive the film into awkward melodrama, but Caine keeps things interesting with equal amounts of menace and geriatric impotence. (www.harrybrown-movie.com)

Author rating: 8/10

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