Michael Caine has had his arm in many a violent little English film through his illustrious career, but none more so than with Harry Brown, a true 18 rated grimy, gritty, bleak and unsettling vigilante tale set in an estate around Elephant & Castle, where yoofs have guns and swear and do drugs everywhere, like most places, and they're violent little pricks.
With Harry Brown the first hour begins with a 5 minute camera shot sequence of events with a youngster embraced by a yoof gang, given a gun, shooting a woman and getting run over, all it needs is a 'Think: Don't shoot people then make an exit without overlooking the possibility that your idiot body might be crushed' text and it'd be a complete advert, instead we then get the outline of the day to day for Harry Brown, Harry not Harold, not even the police when formally addressing him say Harold, well written as always, he wakes up, tea and jam, walks to the hospital, sees his wife, grabs a pint, talks to his pal Leonard then gets home before the yoofs come out and make noise, general discomfort and cause some ultra-violence, if they had milk instead of booze we'd have already seen this film...
One day the yoofs shove dog leavings through 'Arry's pal's letterbox and he snaps, running out with a bayonet and attacking the kids, who use it against him and violently kill him, whilst filming the attack of course. Soon enough the police investigation, led by the wonderful Emily Mortimer and a stilted partner dishing out lines so bland and devoid of human emotions they'd be out of place in a Bill episode, peters out and 'Arry can't have that, scoring a few guns from local black market drug runners he soon runs rampant around the estate, causing the police to get mobile on the yoofs and dealers, thinking they are behind it all instead.
The first hour of the film delivers some really harrowing, unsettling moments and has a bleak and realistic world view, offering up no easy answers, just lots of poorly scripted moments dealt with by professional actors. The second hour, however, the film loses all quality, becoming something of a facist fantasy, an old man with a gun reigning terror on idiot yoofs and hoodies, with no interest on moral dilemmas if there's a chance for a stupid, overblown action sequence that adds nothing to the characters, instead saying that the only thing that needs to be done is shoot all kids and crime rates drop tenfold. A subsequent riot sequence with kids acting like French students and a pub finale where a random, stupid twist is added to try to create an effect on the 'who is the bad guy, is the good guy even worse' without looking at Harry Brown as anything but a saint with a pistol.
It's a shame that the film delves into ridiculous male fantasy after some amazing reality grounding work first up, and Daniel Barber's visual eye is clear here, the lighting, the shots, it's wonderfully done, if only the script had been given a once over by someone who didn't say "Oh, shooting would be cool here, what's normal people speak sound like?"
6/10
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