Can it really be 36 years since Charles Bronson took justice in his own hands in the film DEATH WISH? Apparently it has but the genre of vigilante justice has continued on in his absence, taking form in various shapes such as the new release HARRY BROWN.
Michael Caine stars as Harry Brown, a retired ex-serviceman whose wife passes early in the film and whose days are filled with little more than a chess game at the local pub with his best friend Leonard (David Atwell). While playing and drinking beer, Leonard comments on how the local punk kids are harassing more and more people and the one at the bar is dealing drugs openly without fear. Harry suggests he calm down and let it pass.
But Leonard doesn’t let it pass. While Harry avoids the underpass walkway to get where ever he is going, Leonard has had enough. He shows Harry one day in the pub restroom that he is now carrying his bayonet from his time in the military. It becomes the same bayonet that is used by the gang members to kill and disfigure Leonard that night.
As the police investigate Leonard’s death Harry is outraged, especially when investigator Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) tells him Leonard should have contacted the police. Harry tells her in no kind words that Leonard did call the police and nothing happened.
Alone with no wife and no friend, Harry decides to take it upon himself to defend the neighborhood he lives in. A man pushed to the limit, like Leonard he has had enough. Weaponless, Harry decides his first mark will be the very punks responsible for putting guns on the street. Armed and dangerous with both the punks and the police searching for the man behind the murders, Harry plans out his next line of attack. But will he be prepared for the discovery of who is behind it all.
The film is an action film but plays more as a drama. The focus may at first seem to be the story of youth violently gone wild but beneath that surface lies a character study of an aging military man who reaches the breaking point and a depiction of today’s youth, bound up in video games, developing no sense of right and wrong, of not caring about anything or anyone except for the quick fix. Both are capable of great destruction, but only one does so for all the right reasons no matter how bad it seems.
It is through subtlety that Caine brings to life this character that has seen better days for both himself and his neighborhood. No long drawn out monologues or stretched out scenes of violence. Yes Harry uses violence, but the fact is while the punks tend to become violent and use it in game like fashion Harry has an objective and moves forward to get there rather than drag it out. No words are necessary; his righteous indignation at the world as it is plays out in his face and his actions.
The vigilante film has been around for ages but DEATH WISH took it into the urban landscape. Subsequent sequels took it to near cartoon stages with overplayed and overdone villains. HARRY BROWN takes the genre back to more realistic roots, offering some strange villains of its own but ones that you actually feel could and do exist.
In a world filled with laws and loopholes that allow violent criminals an exit or escape at times, viewers have always clung to the vigilante justice allowed by movies. Be it Bronson in DEATH WISH, the character of Bufford Pusser in the WALKING TALL movies or Harry Brown, we all wish that there was someone out there willing to take the extra step needed to see that justice prevails when justice is subverted. And because of that desire movies like this will always find an audience.
Unfortunately this film received little or no release to screens across the country filled with multiple showings of the latest blockbuster. Fortunately DVD releases give us the chance to see things passed over by the local multiplex. That being said, HARRY BROWN is a solid drama that delivers exactly what the trailers showed: a man seeking justice for wrongful acts. And Michael Caine offers a dynamite subtle performance that may not be the best thing he’s ever done, but shows he can still act with the best of them.
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