HARRY BROWN 1/4
Samuel Goldwyn Films, Rated R
While geeks have monopolized the big screen as unlikely wimps turned he-men and superheroes for some time now, if Daniel Barber’s senior slasher spree Harry Brown is any indication, old geezers would like a turn too. Warning: Trying this homicidal revenge out in the real world is not recommended, especially for those prone to chronic cardiac conditions and advanced arthritis.
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Michael Caine is Mr. Brown, the meek chess enthusiast turned wheezing septuagenarian serial killer in question, consigned by economic circumstances to living in a crime-ridden London housing project. Following the one-two punch of the death of his invalid wife and murder of his terrorized, bayonet-wielding chess partner and best friend by local juvenile delinquents, Harry goes ballistic and appears to succumb to post-traumatic senior citizen syndrome.
Michael Caine stars in Harry Brown
The elder gone wild is no novice when it comes to torturing, maiming and incinerating: It seems Harry learned a thing or two about interrogating and slaughtering suspects while stationed as a marine in Northern Ireland way back when. And he’s still quite handy with a bullwhip when extracting confessions from a kid with a paper bag over his head.
Assessing the police as powerless to assist, in particular the fretting but frail-headed detective Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer), Harry goes undercover, infiltrating the indoor marijuana farm presided over by the reigning young thugs. And while the dapper old gent’s shopping for a gun to allegedly kill pigeons should have been an automatic giveaway as to his true intentions, the gang may have been too stoned on their own product to notice. In any case, the youthful villains can be spotted immediately even without any supporting criminal evidence, since they all have bad teeth, massive tattoos and seem to speak English backwards.
Caine’s geriatric vigilante sniper who escapes from a hospital bloodied but unbowed to save the nation may have some justified gripes against UK ghetto youngsters with bad behavior. But the “Don’t trust anyone under 30” generation gap carnage that ensues, with violence as the sole problem solving solution, is really not the kind of role model example the community elders should be setting.
Though the never disappointing Caine can turn whatever shoddy thriller into a near masterpiece, even if he might opt to play Godzilla somewhere down the line, there’s something radically distasteful about a film that blames the faceless masses living in miserable poverty for their own plight, especially when it’s thespian affluent haves impersonating the demonized have-nots.
