The first five minutes contains no dialogue whatsoever, but from Michael Caine’s acting master class you know all about him, his lifestyle, his friends and his home. More importantly you know about his problems and the solutions. Yes, he’s that good.
So what’s it all about?
Harry Brown is a British vigilante crime thriller film directed by Daniel Barber and starring Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jack O’Connell, and Liam Cunningham.
The story follows Harry Brown, a widowed Northern Ireland veteran living on a London housing estate that is rapidly descending into youth crime. Harry takes up violent methods to curb crime after a friend is murdered.
Writer Gary Young expertly allows the actors to perform and keep the dialogue to the minimum. With the help of such a star actor, the direction must have proved quite easy.
Emily Mortimer also gives a great acting presentation as the police detective who is the only officer who knows who the vigilante is (no-one else will listen to her) and is the lone law enforcement bureaucrat that can stop him, but her flaky attitude to her work leaves her open, venerable and unable to capture her rogue. This, of course, leads to her near death, but as could obviously be predicted, she’s saved by the very man she’s chasing for crimes against the criminals. Confused; no need; it’s expertly prepared and presented with a few twists that weren’t anticipated.
The Brits do these movies so well that it could, worryingly, be set in any ghetto in most first world countries. The language and graphic violence will stop younger people seeing this movie, which is just as well because the longer they can be protected against such drugs, under age sex and gun murders, the better.
At under two hours, the movie could have been given the traditional Hollywood style ending, but it kept to its central core and gave us a real ending.
Let’s hope, as reported, this isn’t Sir Michael Caine’s last lead role, although at aged 77 he may not want such hard work (which he makes look so undemanding) in the future. A veteran of over 100 movies, you can fill a top ten of his quality movies with at least twenty titles.
This movie should be on any newbie actor or screenplay writer’s watch list so they can learn from the masters.
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