Today readers, on masterfilmchef, we are cooking up a triffic britflic. Into your melting pot goes Grand Torino, The Brave One, The Bill (!), Get Carter, Death Wish and Dirty Harry ...now you've cooked up a real treat for Michael Caine fans (like me).
Set in a South London housing estate terrorised by drug running gangs, Caine is an ex-marine who reaches his breaking point following the (natural) death of his wife and the (unnatural) death of his best friend.
Harry Brown isn't perfect, but its bloody good. And bloody is the word, with Caine ably combining two of his hallmark personas - the charming old codger and the brutal killer.
“You’ve failed to maintain your weapon, son” says Caine before blowing away a psychotic drug-dealer. This is the pivotal point where his character shifts from One Foot in the Grave mode into Grand Torino/Dirty Harry/Death Wish/Brave One/Get Carter mode.
For my money, Harry Brown steers too far clear of the quietly understated moral ambiguity of Grand Torino and leans too heavily towards Brave One/Death Wish territory. Caine, however, is every bit as as good as Eastwood, in both cases it is because the audience knows these doddering old men are actually Dirty Harry /Jack Carter that we feel the tension right from the start - it is really hard NOT to want to see the scumbags blown away. Even the cops in Harry Brown are totally accepting of murder when it is certain types of people being done in by certain other types. This is not a morally complex film, it is bad guys vs good guys, and you can guess which side Harry is on and you can guess who is going to LOSE!
Oh, and it features local Dulwich celeb Ian Glen as a twit of a senior cop who gets it all badly wrong.
