"Michael Caine’s performance is faultless, whether frail and resigned or with a steely determination to exact revenge"

 

Michael Caine hangs up his Batman butler’s gear and all but dons Charles Bronson’s moustache as a vigilante pensioner in Daniel Barber’s feature film debut, Harry Brown.  But while it’s slickly filmed, its questionable moral standpoint and sensationalist violence threatens to undermine solid performances from its cast.

Harry Brown (Michael Caine) is a retired marine and pensioner who lives alone in a council estate flat in London.  His life revolves around trips to the hospital to see his dying wife and chess games with his old friend Len in their local pub.  But when his wife dies and Len is brutally murdered by a gang of youths, Harry’s life closes in on him; now he has nothing to live for.

When he finds that the police are unable to do anything to prosecute Len’s murderers despite the best intentions of Inspector Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer), he decides to take the law into his own hands.

Harry Brown feels very much like a film of two halves.  In the first half is a portrayal of council estate Britain worthy of a filmmaker like Ken Loach, Harry struggling to get by in an unsympathetic neighbourhood. This is helped enormously by Michael Caine’s performance which is entirely believable - everything from his shuffling gait to the faraway look in his eyes which suggests better days. Cinematographer Martin Ruhe does a wonderful job of intensifying the grim atmosphere, creating a washed-out, ashen and grey urban landscape – a place with little pity or love. 

However, as soon as Harry crosses paths with drug and gun dealer Stretch (Sean Harris, the very picture of wretchedness) and his pal Kenny (Emmerdale Farm’s own Eli Dingle, Joseph Gilgun), the film veers off the path of genuine social portrayal and into Death Wish country.   The violence that Harry doles out could initially be considered justified or at the very least understandable but it goes much further than that.  Brown pauses each time to deliver a pithy one-liner and this robs the film of its realism and its moral credibility.

The spree of violence which follows is just an unconscionable as the reign of terror inflicted by the youths themselves, if not more so, but the film’s message seems to be that at the heart of every crime infested council estate, all we need is a vigilante to come and sort them out.  It differs greatly from Clint Eastwood’s recent outing in Gran Torino – at least there, the character had a sense of restraint and in the end used pacifism as a way out; Harry Brown just seems to be intent on glorifying the violence with which its reels are saturated.

That said, Michael Caine’s performance is faultless, whether frail and resigned or with a steely determination to exact revenge, and director Daniel Barber has an excellent eye for keeping the pace taut and tension high.  It’s just a shame that such a good performance is almost washed away by the tide of wanton violence.

Harry Brown (18) is out November 7.