Harry Brown

Michael Caine has a new modus operandi. He isn’t quite out of the acting game for good, but his script-chasing days are over. Instead, Caine has declared he will sit at home waiting for a script that’s so good he cannot refuse. Otherwise, retirement it is.

I’m not particularly sure why, then, the elder statesman spent several months last year running around a run-down housing estate in North London’s impoverished Elephant and Castle district toting pistols instead of staying at home, cosy in his slippers—because Harry Brown seems a poor reason to stir his 77-year-old bones.

For those old enough to remember, the plot hints at elements of Caine’s notorious performance as a ruthless killer in Get Carter—for the rest, it just looks like Alfred trying his hand at being Batman.

Harry Brown (Caine) is a widowed ex-Royal Marine living in the aforementioned estate, which has become overrun with British hoodlums or ‘chavs’, dealing drugs and amusing themselves by harassing everyone in proximity.

When Harry’s fed-up pensioner pal Leonard finally retaliates, he’s killed for his trouble. The loss and subsequent news that the thugs may dodge murder charges on ‘self-defence’ claims are the last straw—Harry is going to clean up the neighbourhood himself. With extreme prejudice.

The following cat-and-mouse vigilantism chugs along rather predictably. The action is plausible—more or less the results you might expect from a 77-year-old ex-marine—but unsatisfyingly so. I found myself torn between congratulating rookie director Daniel Barber on not subscribing to over-the-top action-film stereotypes and rebuking him for the anticlimactic feel of it all.

Caine is in his element—literally. Growing up just around the corner from the film’s setting, he fits into the stark surrounds effortlessly. It’s just the script that lets him down: there’s a missing link between Brown’s raw vulnerability at losing a dear friend and his uncompromising hunger for justice.

English rapper Ben Drew (aka Plan B) is visceral as Noel Winters: hoodlumery boiled down to human form. Harry’s primary prey, Drew is a swaggering, anarchic presence, threatening to steal any scene he’s in (among other things). Harry Brown may be perpetuating a blunt stereotype in regard to Noel and his ilk, but they do such a good job of alienating the viewer, it’s forgivable. Just don’t try too hard to understand what they’re saying—dripping with slang, their cockney tips the scales at Guy Ritchie levels.

On a similar note, special mention must go to the environment itself—the uncomfortably bleak housing estate offers a smorgasbord of grime, grit and graffiti that will have viewers feeling soiled on their way out.

Stylistically, Barber puts in a solid effort at the helm (the opening scene shot on a thug’s camera phone makes for a startling introduction) and controls the pacing well. However, the idea of an indignant, elderly Michael Caine giving the local hoods what-for is more gratifying than it actually plays out—sadly, this makes for a better trailer than film.