Review of Harry Brown (2009) by Dean M — 16 Oct 2010

The movie reviewers keep saying about this UK thriller film is the UK's answer to Gran Torino, with its disgruntled Old Age Pensioner putting the smackdown on the smackheads pulling the turf Harry Brown called home for years. It also borders, alarmingly at points, on a fascist's fantasy, Michael Caine's Harry shooting, barb-wiring and torturing his hoodie prey without much in the way of remorse and with much in the way of graphic close-up.

In lesser hands, frankly, it could have played like a tooled-up realisation of talkback-radio vitriol. But director Daniel Barber's economic direction - in, astonishingly, his first feature - gives his revenge flick a distinct identity of its own. From a truly scary, immediate and immersion pre-credits sequence, through a series of unbearably tense scenes (the standout being Caine's visit to a drug dealer's den) and to a wonderfully Western climax, Barber takes his time, giving Harry room to breathe.

But it is a powerful and surprisingly accessible movie that's brave enough to ask uneasy questions amid its explosive set-pieces and witty one-liners. Not to mention one that reconfirms Caine as the unparalleled king of cool. His transformation from chess-playing old codger to gun-toting Dirty Harry is a masterclass in slow-build.