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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/20/2009 : 11:27:38
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Harry Brown
There's only one reason to see this exploding bubble-gum flick and that's Michael Caine as the eponymous pensioner seeking vengence.
He lives on what Brits call a council estate ... what NYers call The Projects. It's a world of neglect and disappointment, in which domestic chaos mirrors the municipal abnegation of responsibility.
The estate has evolved its own yoof-dominated economy based on a trade in weapons, drugs and human exploitation. The left-over generation trapped in pensioner poverty have ceased to be seen as people in the eyes of the teeny-tyrants. They're more like vid-game victims waiting to happen.
Harry's got hidden depths that belie his shuffling gait. When one of his closest pals gets popped he begins a trail of vengeance that eventually explodes in a riot and inferno. Unlikely enemies unite against the cops for whom public relations take priority over the suspicions of a smarty-pants [if miscast] cop, played by Emily Mortimer.
Mortimer, btw, represents the token acknowledgment that female emancipation has moved on from the suffragettes. And, even she's dismissed at every turn. The other women are either the kind of disposable slags who are told to fuck off at the slightest hint of trouble by their ruff-tuff boyfriends, or strung out on dope supplied by their dopey boyfriends, or impotent screaming women protesting the arrest of their suspect sons.
In fact the script reeks of something that's been rotting in a drawer for decades. Among many dated anomalies, there's a tenuous IRA thread, but not a multi-cultural face to be seen.
The film's a check-list of seen-it-all-before. This stuff used to be the staple of the Western, which at least reflected a world where the individual had to take the place of the law. Then Charles Bronson et al moved to the city, making sure to pack a vengeance gun.
Now the Brits are catching up, not even bothering to note how well-trod the path is. But Caine transcends all the guff and will prob'ly be nominated for an award or two.
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Harry Brown
