Harry Brown (18.)
Directed Daniel Barber.
Starring Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles, David Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Ben Drew. 97 mins
Thirty years ago, British audiences could vicariously experience the violence and social deprivation across the Atlantic in the Death Wish films, while on TV Jim Davidson could cheerfully go Up the Elephant and Round the Castle. Now the Elephant and Castle is the concrete jungle playing host to our very own Death Wish as Caine plays a geriatric vigilante who takes on the feral youth and drug dealers who terrorise his estate.
Empire magazine dubbed this 76 year old Caine’s last ever leading role and you can sense the pressure to make this something relevant and state-of-the-nation important. I wish this had been as a fine a departing vehicle as Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino but despite some good moments it doesn’t hold up.
The film plays out in three sections – it starts out grimly realistic and happy slapping graphic, then steps over into credibility stretching wish fulfilment fantasy as Brown strikes back, before then attempting to lurch back into reality for the finale, a move that leaves the film looking like a special episode of The Bill. There are some serious plot holes, mostly regarding Caine’s mobility both in terms of his ability to move around a busy estate with a hostage unnoticed or track someone without access to a car.
Caine though is so good he almost gets you to go along with it. You get the full range from painfully truthful actor to immortal screen icon. There are two particularly impressive moments - a monologue delivered to a drug dealer (very well played by Sean Harris,) and a confrontation with detective Emily Mortimer when he raises his voice for the first time and before your eyes the frail and vulnerable pensioner he has so movingly portrayed in the first half is replaced by an avenging ex-marine, the kind of brutal dead eye killer Caine has always been a master of.
Directed Daniel Barber.
Starring Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles, David Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Ben Drew. 97 mins
Thirty years ago, British audiences could vicariously experience the violence and social deprivation across the Atlantic in the Death Wish films, while on TV Jim Davidson could cheerfully go Up the Elephant and Round the Castle. Now the Elephant and Castle is the concrete jungle playing host to our very own Death Wish as Caine plays a geriatric vigilante who takes on the feral youth and drug dealers who terrorise his estate.
Empire magazine dubbed this 76 year old Caine’s last ever leading role and you can sense the pressure to make this something relevant and state-of-the-nation important. I wish this had been as a fine a departing vehicle as Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino but despite some good moments it doesn’t hold up.
The film plays out in three sections – it starts out grimly realistic and happy slapping graphic, then steps over into credibility stretching wish fulfilment fantasy as Brown strikes back, before then attempting to lurch back into reality for the finale, a move that leaves the film looking like a special episode of The Bill. There are some serious plot holes, mostly regarding Caine’s mobility both in terms of his ability to move around a busy estate with a hostage unnoticed or track someone without access to a car.
Caine though is so good he almost gets you to go along with it. You get the full range from painfully truthful actor to immortal screen icon. There are two particularly impressive moments - a monologue delivered to a drug dealer (very well played by Sean Harris,) and a confrontation with detective Emily Mortimer when he raises his voice for the first time and before your eyes the frail and vulnerable pensioner he has so movingly portrayed in the first half is replaced by an avenging ex-marine, the kind of brutal dead eye killer Caine has always been a master of.
