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Just by looking at a poster of the film, it looked a lot like Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino with the poster of an old man in a coat holding a gun. When I watched it, I absolutely adored it! Gran Torino wasn't the only film it reminded me of. The other film it reminded me of was the Jodie Foster film The Brave One. Harry Brown is a very powerful British film that is set is modern day England and the film has quite a slow pace but despite that, it was a simple story. It was a very gruesome film with a lot of psychologically disturbing moments involving drugs and sex. To be honest, this film shows the world how weak and vulnerable England has become now.
The film is set in modern day England and tells the story of an old man called Harry Brown. He is a widowed Northern Ireland veteran who is living on an Elephant And Castle housing estate that is rapidly descending youth crime. Harry takes up violence on those youths when a close friend is murdered. Michael Caine's performance was absolutely brilliant! Caine goes old school with his badass style like Clint Eastwood does in Gran Torino. I guess it goes to show that Caine's career isn't over just yet because of his performance in this film. Emily Mortimer has made a name of herself over the past few years with some good performances in great films. Other examples besides Harry Brown are Match Point, Lars And The Real Girl and most recently Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. Mortimer portrays DI Frampton who is a cop investigating what happened to Harry's friend Leonard who was murdered with her partner DI Hicock. She also begins to work harder by keeping an eye on Harry and looking out for him so to speak because of how devastated he was to find out about Leonard's death and that he might've gone into a mad moment and craved for revenge (which is what he does). Harry Potter star David Bradley portrays Leonard.
Daniel Barber directs this film like Clint Eastwood directs Gran Torino but personally I think Barber's work on Harry Brown was better than Eastwood's. Harry Brown was quite slow paced and it didn't really feel like a very long film. It took like 40 minutes for Harry to start going for revenge on those youths who killed his friend. I like to think that the film is expressing what some neighbourhoods in Britain have become now with teenagers committing awful crimes and being let astray to take the wrong path.
Overall, Harry Brown is an absolutely fantastic film that I loved from start to finish. Michael Caine revives his old style of acting and role choices like back in 1971 when he was in Get Carter. Without a doubt one of the best films of 2009 and the best British film of the year.
9/10
