Harry Brown

If you followed the career path of Michael Caine you might well wonder what happened, from being crowned the King of Cool in movies such as Get Carter, Alfie, and The Italian Job; Caine almost dropped out of the popular movie genre. During the 80’s and 90’s with the odd exception (Educating Rita, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The forth Protocol) his movies were generally bottom end stuff, most of his output in this time is available on super low budget DVD. For Caine however age made him turn a corner, and as the star tentatively spoke about a cameo in popular soap Eastenders, his movie career took of in ways he possibly never realised. With two Batman movies, Children Of Men, and the highly acclaimed Is Anybody There? Behind him Caine now returns in his intriguing movie yet, Harry Brown.

Harry Brown follows a history of popular vigilante movies like Death Wish, Exterminator, Falling Down, and more recently, and perhaps more similarly Grand Torino. Harry Brown follows a pensioner as he makes the daily slog off his East London council estate past the gangs of violent youths to see his wife (terminally ill in hospital), and best friend Len. In a blink of an eye Harry’s life is torn apart, firstly his wife dies, then in a suspicious incident Len is killed by the gangs that essentially run the estate. An ex marine, Harry’s killer instinct is revived in a late night attack by the banks of a canal, having easily despatched one of these thugs, Harry is determined to take the rest down, regardless of cost.

To use the term gritty would be too tame a word to describe this movie from first feature film helmer Daniel Barber. From the movies incredibly shocking opening to its brutal finale, Barber has carefully depicted the ultimate hell on earth in the form of a London council estate, forget all those dark desolate New York based movies of the 1970’s, Barbers London is a far darker place, more deadly than Afghanistan. What Barber does is shows how these essential ghettos work, some people seeing the trouble some of the time, while others see it all the time. Barber shows Harry Browns eyes widening as he sees the horror of what’s going on in the place he calls home. While Brown always knew it was there, he has always avoided the spots that the bad things happen, giving him a more sheltered view.

I suspect Barber has studied CCTV footage of gang related violence, because in the movies first portion he shows how one incident can quickly go out of control, in an instant you see a man protecting his property, to having his head smashed open more or less on his very front door; this is powerful stuff.

When faced with real menace, you go out of yourself you become a far stronger person, this is the stance of Harry Brown; whom with everything gone suddenly finds that the anger of loss is to much to bear, with one man already dead thanks to his quick reflexes you see Brown move from dwindling seventy year old to a man of unknown age fighting for what is right. Compassion gone Brown moves to man of action, and Caine portrays this fantastically. Its great to see the transformation from man who takes five minutes to make a cuppa, to the man that terminates wrong doers in a heartbeat. There is no reasoning with Brown, no time for regrets, Brown moves sleekly and does what he believes is right in order to create the best outcome for everyone.

Criticism has been given to the movie for being a little too trigger happy, and that’s probably right towards the back end of the feature. At the same time however, you do have to ask what you might do if placed in these circumstances. And if there is any criticism to make really its only towards the end when things develop into total riot, and Brown finds himself in the right place at the right time.

At the time I never considered the issue of race, but thinking on it seems that the casting team are not going to take the easy option of race behind this estates anarchy. These are proper white British gangs, ran indirectly by proper east end gangsters and associates, any minority race involved are there literally by minority. Its very easy in movies to lean heavily on the race aspect, but there are no cheap punches here.

I touched on the final portion of the movie, and it does get a little predictable, and essentially ultra violent, as one woman police crusader Inspector Frampton (Emily Mortimer) closes in on Brown who she has always suspected to be a little too involved in the spurge of criminal deaths. As the estate falls into anarchy, Frampton adds fuel to a fire by Scooby Doo style revealing a secret to Brown about relationships on the estate. While a little bit out of synch with the rest of the film, in fairness its difficult to decide where things would lead from the road the film has taken.

If I have one issue with the film it’s the blasé way that the deaths of the gang members (at the hands of Brown) are almost unmentioned by the police, almost thrown in as an afterthought. But beyond that, I have no issue with Harry Brown, and while it makes itself undoubtedly the best British movie of 2009, it also makes itself the best vigilante movie of all time.

Harry Brown opens in UK cinemas on November 11^th.

The Dying Breed

Once every while a movie comes along that leaves such a punch in its final moments that its final message outweighs any other aspect of the film.

New Aussie horror The Dying Breed opens in a rather lengthy way, delivering an insight into four characters without really giving you a shred of information. Geared firmly at the character of Nina who has lots of meaningful moments, flashbacks and visions of events that occurred to her sister in a rural location sometime earlier. The movies characters all have headed to a strange backwater in search of the site of the mysterious Tasmanian Tiger, something that is as great a myth as Bigfoot. While Nina acts all weird and deep, the others all seem to share a mutual dislike for each other forming two parties. But as they feud, they all miss completely the tensions that surround them.

My opening paragraph may seem a little confused, but to be honest with you it all is pretty much, there are little explanations given as to why people are how they are, or why they behave the way they do; its all done in that way where the movies creators have tried to be on a higher intellectual plain than us mere mortals. The truth of the matter is, despite their best efforts its not very deep at all.

Now saying this, The Dying Breed is not a bad film, because what it does do is gather a couple of menacing factors and sticks them together. First up you have the issue of the Tasmanian Tiger, a creature that lives in isolation and is only rumored to exist, rumour suggests that the only reason its never been seen is because those that see it are eaten, and logic would tell you that such an illusive animal would be a little on the protective side to protect its lifestyle. The second and far more troubling is that back in the days of Australia being a prison one of the convicts known as Alexander The Pieman escaped and somehow managed to survive for a rather long time, well long enough to create some descendants, clue to his habits revolve around his nickname.

What you have in The Dying Breed is a good old-fashioned tale of Deliverance style locals and the wonder of cannibalism. The result of which, despite the producers best efforts to make the characters rather unlikeable; is quite a gross out movie offering filled with blood, gore and sometimes worse. Its all actually quite disturbing territory that harks back to the 1980’s video nasty era.

The punches are the basis of the movies success, because from the moment you enter the second half of the movie your transported into a variety of horrifically unpleasant circumstances, and disturbing visuals. Punch, punch, punch! Once the movie gets going its fairly relentless, characters are dispatched in continuously worse methods as it becomes apparent that the locals are clearly the descendants of The Pieman, and that Nina’s sister undoubtedly had some sort of nasty encounter with these locals.

The clear difference with this movie is that it packs two very big final punches one of which leads you to a false ending. And if that were not enough the text that appears onscreen just before the credits roll lead you on a wild and furious search online, because the story ends in such a way to make you wonder if the film could in fact be based on some true facts. And quite disturbingly, potentially it is.

Its grubby looking, broody, its empty on the character building front, but its actually pretty good entertaining viewing. And the sort of thing that keeps you thinking long after the credits roll. If nothing else it will give you some visuals to haunt your mind.