November 2009
<< Back

Harry Brown (18)
Printed 11th November 2009

“My name is Harry Brown and I’m gonna clean up this godforsaken part of town” could have been an apt tagline for this Michael Caine-starring urban western.

A hard-hitting, socially-relevant and intense viewing experience, Harry Brown is widely being described as the British Gran Torino. There are certainly surface similarities (isolated old man against the young criminal element in his neighbourhood) but Daniel Barber’s kitchen sink social commentary-cum-violent revenge thriller seems far more rooted in the real than Eastwood’s fantastic fable. For the most part anyway.

Michael Caine is Harry Brown, an ex-Royal Marine entering his twilight years alone after the early death of his daughter and recent passing of his beloved wife. Living on a rough estate in Sarf (sic) London, law-abiding citizen Harry hides away from the racial and gang-related violence that takes place right outside his window. But when his best friend Len (David Bradley – cantankerous caretaker Argus Filch in the Harry Potter series) is murdered by a local gang of drug-dealing hoodies, Harry feels compelled to act and is forced to dispense his own brand of extreme justice to the unsavoury elements of everyday, everywhere society.

A film that doesn’t shy away from showing some home truths and asking some difficult questions, Harry Brown is a raw and real examination of issues that many people around the country face every single day. Eschewing the still-vogue Guy Ritchie gangsta stylistics for something altogether more realistic, Barber captures the grime of London council estates in much the same way Danny Boyle encapsulated the Edinburgh drug scene over a decade ago in Trainspotting. Basically, this ain’t your Friday night glamour picture.

Starting slow and gradually escalating from there, the 103-minute film takes its sweet time getting to the Death Wish-style harsh violence, going roundabout to show you just what the problem is dahn (sic) on the estate and the hopelessness of the situation for the good-natured inhabitants as well as the police in trying to dispose of the criminal underbelly. So don’t go into this thinking its Michael Caine’s Taken. It is much more socio-realist than that slice of guilty pie. That said it does become increasingly far-fetched as Harry carves his way through the crime syndicate, as the police simultaneously insight riots on the streets of London. ‘Course its arguable this is a deliberate stylistic choice to serve as something of a warning of what might come to be rather than just be the Get Carter act every Caine fan wants to see.

Look, Harry Brown does tread familiar vigilante ground. It is neither massively original nor groundbreaking. But it is insightful and honest and very, very British. Which is something to celebrate if you ask me. You also couldn’t argue that it pulls any punches in its depiction either. In no way does this make the gangsta / drug scene seem appealing. So perhaps it ought to be shown to kids as an educational video – this is not the life you are looking for.

And anyway, if anything, it’s simply great to see Caine on such effortlessly cool leading man form again. This serves as good a last star vehicle (‘cos Caine is at least in Nolan’s next Inception and sure to reprise Alfred the butler once more if they both come back with Bale for another go at The Bat) for the British national treasure as Torino did the legendary Clint. Plus it provides him with yet another iconic one-liner that is sure to enter the pop culture lexicon in the same way that “you’re a big man, but you’re out-of-shape” and “you’re only ‘spose to blow the bloody doors off” did back in his heyday: “you have failed to secure your weapon, son”. Can’t you just hear him saying it?

****