Harry Brown

Directed By: Daniel Barber

Starring: Michael Caine, Plan B

Released: 11th November 2009

Certificate: 18

Reviewed By: Adam Jones

If there’s one thing I’ve yet to notice about Michael Cain, it’s that he’s old. No really, I understand he’s physically as old as dust but he just doesn’t ever seem like an old man, perhaps it’s due to his reputation and career coming before his appearance or perhaps it’s just that he looked like an old man when he was young, who knows. Yet old he is, and this film is first and foremost an action film, weird eh?

Harry Brown is a film about one pensioners crusade against the insufferable scrotes terrorising his neighbourhood. You know the type, perpetually hooded idiots who speak like a stoke victim after a lobotomy.
Michael Cain plays Harry Brown, the kind elderly former Royal Marine who decides he just isn’t going to take these kind of hijinx and escapades off the little hooligans anymore and Boy does he deal justice.
Upon deciding he’s had enough Mr. Brown seems to turn from kindly old man into octogenarian Jason Bourne, possessing powers of surveillance on par with the eye of Sauron and seemingly shooting and doing away with anyone who remembers Pokemon.

From the opening scene to the films close, the ‘yoof’ of today are depicted as violent, self obsessed, drug addicted, disrespectful animals. I should as a young person be offended, however I’m not because whilst the depiction is obviously over the top and exaggerated, I can see the truth in it, the sad downward spiral of society.
Quite simply I thought this film was fantastic, really I did. Outstanding performances from all the cast notable Cain himself and Plan B, but a special mention goes too Sean Harris in a perfectly played part as Strech the drugs/weapons/women dealer for possibly one of the best portrayals of drug addiction on screen.

Honestly, buy it.

Fan of ‘Michael Caine’? MM reviews for ‘Children Of Men’ and ‘The Dark Knight’