Michael Caine delivers a master class in the superb Harry Brown.
In 1971 Michael Caine starred in the cult British gangster flick ‘Get Carter’. In the film Caine plays Jack Carter a Londoner who travels to the North of England to try to discover the circumstances of his brother’s death. Carter’s mission takes him into the bleak, uncompromising and seedy underworld of Newcastle’s gangland. On discovering the suspicious circumstances of his brother’s death Carter is hell bent on revenge. It’s an early ‘tour de force’ for Caine who displays his trademark calm, understated yet perfectly measured portrayals. Lesser actors have tried to imitate it in Brit gangster flicks over the years but come up woefully short.
Thirty eight years later and Caine is back playing Harry Brown. The setting is just as un-salubrious in the way of a grim South London council estate overrun with young thugs and locals living in fear of violence. When the widowed ex-serviceman Brown stumbles on to the mindless death of his close friend he sees the only way to set the record straight is by fighting fire with fire.
The declining years have seen Caine lose none of his ‘Carter cool’ as his puts in a thoroughly first rate performance effortlessly merging the mild natured senior citizen with calculating revenge seeker.
Caine’s excellent performance aside, the movie warrants serious attention. Director Daniel Barber superbly frames the action to great cinematic effect. Just as in Get Carter which used inventive filming techniques like unusual and imaginative perspectives adding to its edgy-ness Barber shows his similar versatility and adeptness.
Right from the opening scene the movie grabs your attention with the action filmed by a kid on a mobile phone riding a bike and shooting indiscriminately before finally gunning down a mother pushing a pram. It’s a highly charged and unsettling intro mixing adrenaline fuelled high jinks with moral outrage inducing reactions at every loud gunfire shot and growing reality of the appalling acts.
The mundane everyday existence of Brown’s life is lovingly rendered with seemingly personal glimpses into the lives of lonely pensioners and of coping with death of a partner. Caine’s lack of histrionics and Barber’s attention to domestic minutiae add a naturalistic verve that is hard to fault. When we see Brown anguish over taking a short cut or peering through the curtains at mindless violence it invokes empathy.
The later stages of the film are no less impressive as a sense of urgency is injected as Brown heads towards a final showdown and a late twist to the proceedings. All against a backdrop of violent clashes that evoke memories of not too distant real riots of the past.
Given its subject matter the film will invariably be dissected for debates surrounding opinions on ‘broken society’. Of course it would be disingenuous to suggest that violent vigilantes is the way forward, remembering that is only a film, but it does pose some questions and put forward thoughtful observations, that which maybe nothing new, are thought provoking nether less. When Emily Mortimer’s cop Frampton says ‘Harry it’s not Northern Ireland you know?’ He responds by saying ‘I know but at least they were fighting for something to them out there it’s just entertainment’. Later Frampton tells Brown that he was right to tell his friend to go to the police. “And what did you lot do… nothing” barks Brown. The inept ‘zero tolerance’ heavy handed old school police approach is also called into question as more incitement and conducive to an escalation of conflict. Mortimer’s character who at first glances appears to be a woolly, jobs-worth can later be viewed as a better alternative with local police working closely with communities rather than the corporate high echelons dealing in soundbites and talking tough. The thugs are portrayed as criminals who ‘know their rights’ and use them to taunt the police. Greater liberties for criminals, meaningless numerous cautions for offenders and a lack of trust in the police are still today leaving some communities living in fear.
