Harry Brown - Review

Release Year: 2009
Country: UK
Cert (UK): 15
Running Time: 103 minutes

Director: Daniel Barber

Cast: Michael Caine (The Dark Knight), Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island), Jack O'Connell (Eden Lake) and Ben Drew (Plan B)

Review
Brief storyline of the film, a modest law-abiding citizen, Harry Brown is forced to dispense his own brand of justice as he bids to clean up the run-down estate he calls home. Michael Caine gives the performance of his lifetime as the iconic Harry Brown.

Now I always like to see Michael Caine within any type genre, films like “The Dark Knight” or “Get Caller” shows a different side of this brilliant British actor I feel that he can do anything with giving the right role, so in 2009 a director called Daniel Barber teams up with writer Gary Young to begin a project that not only shows the teen-crime, weapon/ drug dealing in British life but get a message across that is real and we need help right people, now with the setting of London is a bit of stereotype to have in British, I know it’s iconic city of England and it’s got most crime edge also but I’ve never seen a crime film set in Bristol (so far lol) plus if you look at films like “Kidulthood” or the poor sequel “Adulthood” the audience can see most British crime are as followed:

·       Chav teens - which are always shown as the “Bad guys” if you will because of filming violence on their phones, no respect and just got that “I can do what I want feel” really bad way of life, which is not too far of the real life.

·       Woman  – is not a strong point within these type of films especially the “Crime” genre, they’re not open-minded roles more junkie doing drugs, using sex to get what their what in man and man are shown more I think that’s because this genre as got a target audience for that group.

·        Crime – each as main focus of how crime is used “Kidulthood” is more of look through at London teen life with sex, drug, violence all comes normal but with “Harry brown” as got that type of feel in some scenes but mainly focus on the victims of crime unlike actually criminals themselves.

The storyline is done well, it gets across the violence of teens with gun shooting, drug dealing and murder throughout this pushes the character of Harry Brown to take control and put a stop it with some old- fashion dialogue “You failed to maintain your weapon, Son” I mean only Caine can pull that off plus it’s gives some entertainment markers which is great in a dark-tone film like this, so the audience gets a nice balance between horrible crime going on London with people being bullied or murdering for basically nothing and then you a classic British actor “Michael Caine” that kills all bad guys, it’s a win win film in my opinion, it feels like a very British version of “Death Wish” with Charlie Bronson.

Overall it’s a well-made vigilante thriller with a message added on to it, if you watched this film you would know that one of the last scenes are the chav teens rioting against the police, this year in 2011 it actually happened for real people was killed or hurt which is one of the reasons that Michael Caine wanted to do the film to make people notice what’s going on in their streets and help the them before it gets out of control, so the gritty realism that the director was going for means more now than in 2006….This film Intelligent, disturbing and packed with emotional depth, Harry Brown is a must see.

Thanks for reading :D