HARRY BROWN
3 out of 5 stars

this was an interesting movie on how british gang violence is escalating in certain "slums" of london. it's also interesting to see how an ordinary person can transform into a vigilante overnight esp. if he's got the right training and personality to make those pay for their crimes... :)


the GREAT michael caine stars in this violent british thriller about an ordinary citizen of one of london's ghetto apartment complexes AKA the estate. harry brown is just an ordinary man, living an ordinary life. he wakes up, makes himself a cup of hot tea, eats a breakfast of jam + toast, and then visits his dying wife in the hospital. in the afternoons, he plays chess with his best friend len attwell in the pub near his apartment complex. problems arrise when harry's "ordinary" life gets disrupted by the death of his wife and beloved kath (very poignant scene- made me cry...) as well as the gruesome murder of his best friend by the local teenage gang. harry doesn't take the news of len's murder very easily, and decides he's going to kill each and every one of the lil' bastards. this, of course, triggers the attention of the police, esp. the attention of detective inspector alice frampton (a subdued/tired looking emily mortiimer) and her colleague detective sergeant terry hicock, who suspect that harry is behind the deaths of the local gang members. fortunately for harry, no one seems to think an old geezer like him would do such a thing... i mean, the guy is in his 70s and has emphesema! but my good chaps, are you in for a surprise... ;)

michael caine is AWESOME in this, as he is in every movie he's in. i guess my only gripe is that the beginnings are really slow and the editing really bothered me because there were times where the film jumped around between scenes too much... (?) the dialogue could have been written better, and the cat-and-mouse interplay between the police figures and harry could have been written better too. (where's the fun in them suspecting harry from the start?) i guess i just felt that this could have been better in terms of dialogue & plot due to the fact that you had 2 GREAT actors, caine and emily mortimer, in this "thriller"... plus, the low budget/indie feel didn't quite fit either. it's not a bad movie per se, but then again...not great either...