Harry Brown Review
by =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Trist=E1n_White?= (Tristan_White AT rocketmail DOT com)June 18th, 2010
HARRY BROWN
Directed by: Daniel Barber
Review by: Tristán Harvey E. White
Rating: (0 to *****): **** (four stars)
The tagline to this film, recently released in the US and having already enjoyed a wide release in its native United Kingdom, is "Every man has a breaking point". It sums up HARRY BROWN quite neatly. Harry (Sir Michael Caine) is an ex Marine, who loses his wife in the early scenes of the film, having already lost his daughter back in the 70s for reasons that are neither given nor are relevant. Harry is now alone, living on a very dodgy council estate on which the local gangs, 'chavs' and hoodies have run riot. Murders are commonplace (and often filmed on mobile phones), the pub is a front for drug deals and the underpass under the main road has become a no-go area. Harry's friend and chess companion, similarly elderly Leonard Attley (played brilliantly by David Bradley) is his last remaining companion. The "breaking point" in the tagline comes soon afterwards.
This film has also been labelled "the British Gran Torino". But this is quite a different story, and the character of Harry Brown is poles apart from the brash Walt Kowalski in Clint Eastwood's remarkable movie. American viewers may have some difficultly understanding the language - the thuggish youths in the UK speak in a type of slang that will be impenetrable for most of those unaccustomed to hearing 'chavspeak' on a day-to-day basis. But while the dialogue is excellent and very accurate of how these characters speak in real life, and the story is gripping, do not be fooled into thinking this is an accurate portrayal of life in Britain today in the bad areas. 'Broken Britain' is Tory propaganda and has been very much exaggerated. Sure, there are dangerous parts, and sure, there are pointless murders and stabbings, but nowhere is it nearly as bad as in this nightmarish vision that would appeal most to the warped views of Daily Mail-reading Conservative voters. Sir Michael recently 'came out' as a Conservative party supporter, and so in hindsight it figures that he agreed to take this role. The council estate where this movie has been filmed, the Aylesbury Estate in south east London, is certainly notorious - recently, a resident was shot in the communal gardens and was not discovered (or, rather, reported) for over 24 hours after the event happened. But it is nowhere near as bad as the nameless Estate portrayed in this movie.
But the exaggerated dystopian vision in HARRY BROWN should not detract from what is otherwise a top movie, as good if not better than GRAN TORINO, spoilt only by the miscast police officers (neither Charlie Creed-Miles as DS Hicock nor Emily Mortimer as DI Alice Frampton are particularly believable in their roles). Sir Michael is on great form as ever, as are the motley collection of thugs. The biggest applause probably should go to first-time feature director Daniel Barber, whose only previous work was THE TONTO WOMAN, a 35 minute short live action movie for which he was Oscar nominated. This alone should help give HARRY BROWN more exposure in the US and will hopefully mean that the movie will be seen in more cinemas. Though many of the audience not accustomed to how the British hoodlums speak, will probably be wondering whether it should not instead qualify for the foreign language category.
As a London-based Brit, I am looking forward to seeing what impact this movie will have on the US cinema-going population. But please remember this is, predominantly, a work of fiction.
Reviewer: Tristán White
*********************************************************************** 103 minutes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289406/
HARRY BROWN went on limited release on 30 April 2010, and reached Australia on 25 May. It was released in the UK in November 2009, where is is already available for rent on DVD.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
