It’s by far the oddest film I’ve seen this year. The premise alone sounds more like a Saturday Night Live sketch than the basis for a gritty tale of revenge. But with Michael Caine in the title role, Harry Brown plays it straight, trying to grip the audience with an AARP version of Death Wish.
There’s not much to envy in Mr. Brown’s life. The film opens with the death of his wife. Retired, he lives in a rundown housing project riddled with crime, rampant with drugs, and infested with violent street thugs. Harry’s best friend Leonard (David Bradley), a fellow septuagenarian, rants about their deteriorating neighborhood over their weekly game of chess. When Leonard decides to take a stand against the criminal element, his actions end in tragedy.
The police round up the usual suspects, but seem helpless to do anything to bring the killers to justice. So Harry decides to take matters into his own hands. A crafty military veteran, Harry is no stranger to combat -- and this is war. He raids a local arms dealer and after cleaning him out (in more ways than one -- if you know what I mean), Harry starts exacting revenge. Before you can say “Charles Bronson,” bullet-riddled bodies of vile punks start popping up everywhere. The detective inspector (Emily Mortimer) heading up the investigation into Leonard’s death, begins to suspect Harry is behind the havoc. But she is quickly dismissed by her superior. “Are you trying to tell me this is the work of a vigilante pensioner?” he asks incredulously.
This quote was my favorite part of the movie.
This may be the worst film Michael Caine has ever done. And that’s saying a lot when you take into consideration Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Jaws: The Revenge. It’s not that he’s bad. Actually, his performance is the best thing in the movie. You just have to wonder what he was thinking when he signed on for the production.
Harry Brown is just not that well made. The direction by Daniel Barber is plodding. Many scenes feels slow and drawn out. That’s because there is not that much really happening in Gary Young’s script. It’s a typical, by-the-numbers revenge scenario with very little depth to it. The bad guys are one-dimensionally evil, so, of course, you want to see them get blown away. The cops -- though noble -- are sullen and ineffective. Every element of the film, from the staging, to the music, to the look feels manipulative as the filmmakers attempt to lure the audience into a sense of dread and hopelessness. Unfortunately, the feeling that results is just plain tedium.
Harry Brown opens in theaters in limited release this Friday.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
