Harry Brown

The pre main-credit sequence, shot to resemble mobile-phone footage, had the desired effect: the sense of shock from the capacity audience was palpable. The film then slows down to show the reality of Harry Brown's life as a pensioner on a South London high-rise estate . Showing his routine of walking to the hospital to visit his very ill wife, having to walk a long way round to avoid confrontation with an unseen group of youths who use an underpass as their base and his meetings with his old friend and chess partner Lenny in the estate pub. There aren't many other people walking about the estate, even in daylight, out of fear of the gun-carrying teenage gangs.

Michael Caine's performance as Harry Brown is wonderful. His timing is spot-on. Credit to director Daniel Barber for allowing him space to breathe and not be hurried. In fact the overall pacing is excellent. There is good use of the soundtrack with the lack of intrusive music adding to the reality feel of the film. The night scenes are beautifully lit as well with a good balance between just enough to see what's going on and making the lighting realistic: the night scene in the pub with the lights out, for instance.

This film has been compared to 'Death Wish' and 'Gran Torino', but those films haven't got this film's bleak, realistic look at how life is in these areas. There always remains a sense of watching a film, of entertainment, of it being 'Hollywood'. This is a lot more down to earth. This film has more in common with Mike Leigh's TV drama 'Meantime' and with 'Gomorra'.

This isn't an easy 'first-date' film but it is a superior Brit film, one of the best for many years. I'm glad to see that it has got some marketing push behind it and has generated column inches talking about the subject of these 'no-go' areas and society in general.

Shocking and brilliant.

Despite Emily Mortimer's ever vapid presence, in no way suited to be convincing as a cop. Michael Caine is masterful as always, film gives him an opportunity to show off his incredible range credibly, from fragile pathos and sorrow to hard unrelenting man in the field you do not want to cross. It's hard to take any satisfaction though in the hunting down and brutalising of miserable wretches at the bottom of the have not pile. Well directed scripted and edited. Love seeing Michael Caine always, he's so damned good nuance by nuance it's spooky.

Harry Brown is a pensioner, and former Marine, living in a very run-down apartment complex (or is it flat) in the urban quarter of London. It's a crappy place to be; kids ling their drugs and guns, and beat up those who happen to venture just a little far out into the path. One of those is Harry's friend, Leonard Atwell, who tries to defend himself against the scum on the streets and winds up stabbed with his own knife. Brown is distraught over this (already he's been all alone since his wife just died and a daughter died many years before, perhaps during childbirth or as a child), and knows the cops won't do much about it despite doing some investigations. So, Brown takes his skills as a former Marine, before facing off against the Northern Irish years before, and uses it to exact payback.

Immediately moviegoers will flash to Gran Torino, as a story of a lonely, grumpy old man mixing it up with gang-bangers in a part of town he should have moved out of. But it actually owes more to Taxi Driver in some part- an ex-Marine wiping "the scum off the streets"- and of course Charles Bronson in Death Wish. But as Michael Caine points out in interviews, there was a certain underlying joy Bronson had with his character of Paul Kersey in the Death Wish movies, even in the first one which was most gritty. This film, about the horror of gang violence and drugs and prostitution as an everyday occurrence, really hits the spot far better than the shots of gang-bangers in Eastwood's film. In fact, I would go as far as to say Harry Brown trumps Gran Torino in the department of being about "something" (Torino about racism, Brown about vigilantism).

And at the center of a film directed with an artful, patient eye by newcomer Daniel Barber, and written with wisdom and tough attitude when it needs to be by Gary Young, is Michael Caine's performance. He's so good in a film like this because we believe this is Harry Brown, or what he might be like, and we can see ourselves in a part of Brown due to Caine's sympathy (or even empathy) with the character. This is a man of reserve, but also resolve, and when he takes to the streets it's because it's really a last resort, a kind of fight for survival as well as revenge, and Caine doesn't hold back when Brown needs to shed some tears, or to have that fierceness in his eyes against these young punks. One such scene, which I'll not soon forget, is after he plugs a bullet into the gut of a junkie dumbass who tries to pull a gun on Brown as he's purchasing a few weapons, and tells a story about a fellow officer he was fighting alongside who had to die in the trenches because of a lack of medical care.

It's one of the best scenes I've ever seen with Caine in it, and overall the film provides him the opportunity for another piece of superb work. Less remarkable, though still decent, is Emily Mortimer, who provides some sensitivity but also is a little soft in a way for the character of a no-nonsense detective hot on the heels of the Atwell/young-punks case (in some scenes, frankly, I just didn't buy her as a detective). But this is so small a flaw that it's hard to judge the film against it. Harry Brown takes its subject matter by the throat, treats it cinematically with care, and when it's violent you get shaken up and when Brown is in the shadows one suddenly wonders why Caine didn't play Batman in Nolan's movies. A serious near-classic on street violence and revenge. 9.5/10

This is the known story of a man become into vigilante . An elderly ex-serviceman and widower , Harry Brown , (Michael Caine) looks to avenge his best friend (David Bradley)'s murder by doling out his own form of justice . As a retired man turned vigilante and taking the law into his own hands as judge , jury and executioner. As every man has a breaking point . Harry turns the one-man vigilante when his friend is attacked , beaten and then stabbed to death in an underground passage carried out by furious band formed by some ominous punks . Then he stalks the slums of London and takes the law into his own hands, searching vengeance on crooks, hoodlums, druggies , muggers, pimps , making the neighborhood safer and bumping off delinquents and street scum . Meanwhile , police officers D.I. Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and D.S. Terry Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles) are investigating the deeds and Police Superintendent Childs (Iain Glen) orders a major arrest operation believing the recent violence is related to a gang war. The late-night raids on the neighbourhood result in a massive riot .

This interesting picture has suspense , emotion , intrigue , thrills and lots of violence . It's certainly thrilling , though the morality may be questionable , even in this time, as the spectators were clearly on the Harry Brown's side . Michael Caine with his usual top-notch acting displays efficiently his weapon such as ¨Harry the Dirty¨ and killing mercilessly nasties . Michael Caine saw a lot of himself in the character of Harry Brown, e.g. they're both combat veterans , as Harry is a Marine who served in Northern Ireland, Caine served in the British Army during the Korean war , and Caine lived in the same area that Brown does , it was things like these that drew him to the film . Secondary cast is frankly excellent such as Emily Mortimer , Charlie Creed-Miles , David Bradley , Iain Glen , Sean Harris, Ben Drew and special mention to Liam Cunningham as Sid Rourke . This is Daniel Barber's nice feature debut , he's now shooting ¨The keeping room¨ with Hailee Steinfeld , Sam Worthington and Brit Marling .

This exciting and above average film belong to ¨Vigilante genre¨ whose main representations are ¨Charles Bronson's Death Wish¨ , successful crime thriller that created the Vigilante genre with Bronson as the main star such as ¨Death wish II¨ ¨Death wish III¨ , ¨Death Wish 4 : The crackdown¨and ¨Death Wish: The face of death¨ and , of course , ¨Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry¨ movies , such as ¨The enforcers¨, ¨Sudden impact¨ and ¨The dead pool¨ . Furthermore , other notorious movies on the ¨Revenger¨ genre that achieved their splendor in the eighties are the followings : ¨Exterminator¨ I and II with Robert Ginty ; ¨Vigilante¨ by William Lusting with Robert Foster , Fred Williamson ; ¨Walking the edge¨ by Norbert Meisel with Robert Foster and Nancy Kwan ; ¨Dark Angel¨ with Betty Russell ; ¨Steele Justice¨ with Martin Kove ¨; ¨The Punisher¨ with Dolph Lundgren , ¨Joe Don Baker's Walking tall¨ saga ; ¨Lorenzo Lamas's Snake eater¨ saga , ¨Arnold's Raw Deal¨ , ¨Stallone's Cobra¨ and many others .

For the most part I was pretty impressed with this movie. Unlike a lot of films of it's ilk, the bad guys are actually quite believable and the setting is sadly realistic. Michael Caine suits this particular role very well and carries the story through some rather slow-paced dour scenes.

Unfortunately there is one rather ridiculous scene that undermines the entire credibility of the story. Harry's encounter with the local drug dealer/arms dealer/rapist/pimp/crackhead is completely over the top and feels like something out of a Tarantino movie. I have no idea why this was even included as it adds virtually nothing to the overall story and takes the gloss off an otherwise excellent production.