There was a time when Michael Caine was one of the toughest tough guys in the movies. From Harry Palmer to Jack Carter, Caine was charismatic, efficient, and — particularly as Carter — ruthless. Now 77, the actor has, for many years, been playing the sort of roles actors past the retirement age usually play, most often supporting turns as sage counsels or father figures. But in the vigilante saga of Harry Brown, he shows there’s still plenty of badass left in those old bones.
Neither Caine’s age nor the subject matter is new territory. Clint Eastwood revived an elderly version of his Dirty Harry persona in Gran Torino, and there’s been a resurgence in 1970s B-movie-style revenge flicks in recent years, with A-listers including Liam Neeson, Jodie Foster, and Kevin Bacon all taking violent stabs at the genre. Gary Young’s script for Harry Brown is a fairly unremarkable boilerplate addition to this tradition — but so is every one of these films, going back to Charles Bronson in Death Wishes one through five. Their enjoyability has little to do with originality or surprising twists. There’s a formula to be followed, and success or failure is mostly determined by the level of viewer bloodlust the filmmakers can tap into, appealing to an audience’s sense of shock at horrific injustices. Having poked and prodded the viewer into a righteous rage, the filmmakers then allow us to live out our collective revenge fantasies through an avenging angel who is deeply scarred, yet unafraid to unleash every act of violent comeuppance polite society forbids us.
In Harry Brown, Young — along with Caine and first-time feature director Daniel Barber — do just that. Brown is an aging pensioner and former Marine, recently widowed, with but one friend left in the world — drinking buddy and chess partner Leonard (David Bradley, taking a break from caretaker duties at Hogwarts). Sad and sympathetic central figure established, they then build the fury, as Leonard and Harry watch the Britain they knew seemingly crumble around them, all from their corner of the pub, and the windows of their shabby apartments in the “estate” (the U.K.’s public housing projects).
