Lionsgate have asked us not to review Harry Brown, a small sized British picture starring Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer which OWF’s Martyn Conterio saw in London tonight, until November, around the time of it’s theatrical release in the U.K.
Fine, have it your way. Even though we liked the picture and could do your small movie a favour by getting the word out that it’s good, we respect your wishes.
However. I couldn’t resist not posting this little bit of snippet from Martyn’s report back…
The film is basically Gran Torino with Michael Caine…I mean, it’s not social-realism…more hysterical realism…in which Caine the codger goes around killing chavs.
Now doesn’t that sound like something? A British Gran Torino, with Michael Caine going old school Get Carter on those little bastards. Wouldn’t we all secretly (or not so secretly?) like to do that ourselves?
Empire described the plot in February as…
…an urban Western, the film sees Caine play the titular Harry Brown, an ex-Marine (which explains the pea coat) and widower forced to journey through a seedy world of drugs and guns to take revenge for the brutal death of his best friend at the hands of a gang of thugs.
Harry Brown is the feature debut of Brit helmer Daniel Barber. Could this be Caine’s audition plea (not that he needs it) for Quentin Tarantino to cast him in his British spy movie he spoke about last week, where he mentioned Caine would be an actor he hopes to work with one day.
4 Comments
I saw two scenes of this at Empires Movie Con last weekend and it looks excellent! Some powerful acting from Michael Caine. From what Daniel Barber said about the film and from what I saw, it will be much more gritty and violence orientated than Gran Torino – promoting the use of violence against thugs rather than the route Gran Torino went down.
Yeah!! God i’d love to kill all the fucking Charvers! the whole lot of them! they’re some sort of half breed with Humans and Orcs.
Good on MC for gunning them down in this flic!
I’d buy that for a dollar!
I watched this the other night at a preview screening and thought I’d give you all a mini review ;) It’s pretty good. Martin Ruhe, the DoP did a great job, the photography is surprisingly good! Caine was fairly solid. Emily Mortimer was quite weak, her character was just too one dimensional and wishy washy. In fact thats probably the biggest flaw to the film, it’s all just a bit one dimensional. Daniel Barber, the director did a good job with a script which is basically just Death Wish in Elephant and Castle. But it is fun! Although it does seem to be a bit confused as to whether it’s an art film or a popcorn movie (it’s popcorn). Overall I enjoyed it (apart from the music) and would say go and see it, but you’ll probably forget it by the time you get home. Oh, and the opening sequence on the bike is amazing! Best bit of the film!
I saw this last night and actually walked out – the first time I’ve ever done this!! *SO* bad. Basically a wet-dream for Daily Mail readers, with none of the subtlety of Gran Torino. A sickening endorsement of vigalante justice – if one of your friends goes after someone with a knife and is killed, make sure you torture and then kill at least six people back (including someone with mental-health issues and a sexually abused youth). Yeah, way to go Caine, you make em pay for behaving so badly (oh, hang on a minute …).
It was also just lazy, piling inner-city cliche on to inner-city cliche: small-time crack dealers who can barely stand up are also responsible for cultivating a weed field the size of a football pitch, nobody seems to own a lightbulb above 40 watts, and the police raid near the end is one of the most factually inaccurate and embarrassing pieces of tosh I’ve ever seen.
In short: A disgraceful piece of dirt that will proably do well in the Uk due to unthinking knuckle-heads like The Glove above. I despair.