Superstar Caine makes Harry a Human Adventure
Michael Caine is one of those actors who has seemingly been around forever, and has his career has spanned over 40 years he pretty much has been. He is a movie star who belongs in the pantheon of The Golden Age greats (i.e. Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Laurence Olivier, et al) and as viewers we sometimes take for granted he will continue to be so. But the reality is that he is one of the hardest working actors alive, and at one point during the 1980’s it felt like he and Gene Hackman – his American contemporary – were appearing in virtually every film made.
Michael Caine in Samuel Goldwyn Films' Harry Brown
Things change, however, and while even at 77 he still works frequently (he’ll next been seen in Christopher Nolan’s hotly anticipated Inception) as a top of the line movie star fans are going to have to settle for seeing him in movies like this week’s limited release Harry Brown if they want to see him at all. It’s not the best film out there but is still worthy if only to watch a master actor at the top of his game, Caine showcasing his craft in a gritty yet predictable vigilante thriller portraying a recently widowed ex-Marine whose golden years are cruelly oxymoronic.
Living in London’s bleak urban projects, the pensioner is waiting to join his dearly departed wife who succumbed to a hospital bed demise of unknown origins and a daughter who passed many years earlier. When he’s not playing chess in the local pub with fellow codger Leonard Atwell (David Bradley) he’s dodging the drug-dealing gangs who have invaded his turf like an incurable disease. When Leonard expresses his own fears and talks about how he’s going to handle the next disturbance Harry foresees things are not going to go well, unsurprised when his friend ends up on the wrong end of his WWII-era bayonet.
What follows is fairly predictable in that Harry decides to take matters into his own hands after the police, led by the unusually interested D.I. Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer), fail to pursue a vigorous investigation and he, too, is assailed by one of his dead pal’s attackers. His vendetta becomes an unspoken truce he has made with himself, deciding that it’s either going to be me or them and nothing in-between.
While this can be compared to Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino; another graying, hard-as-nails avenger taking the piss out of the dregs of society; filmmaker Daniel Barber’s slow and steady pacing of Gary Young’s thoroughly matter-of-fact script wins the race. Yet it is Caine’s range that’s a mix of the fierce and fearful that makes Harry Brown something more, the film becoming a truly human experience thanks to the power of the two-time Academy Award winner’s performance.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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