Caine's happily retired soldier is a man of simple means and even simpler pleasures, content with having a quiet game of chess down the local with his good friend, Leonard (David Bradley, best known as the janitor in the Harry Potter series). It's where he goes for solace after we witness early on the passing of Harry's hospitalized wife.
All that peace and goodwill to all men quickly evaporates though when Leonard is brutally murdered by the thugs on Harry's rundown estate. And that's when he decides to go on a non-roaring rampage of revenge, picking off the thugs in question one-by-one as he searches for the truth surrounding his late friend's death. Hovering around looking for clues is Emily Mortimer's sensitive detective, Frampton...
THE VERDICT: Just as watching Clint Eastwood's cantankerous old Polish pensioner point the barrel of his finger at a passing street gang in Gran Torino had you thinking of Police Inspector Harry Callahan, the sight of Michael Caine as an old London geezer taking on the violent hoodies blotting the landscape of his East London high-rise council estate here makes you think of Harry Palmer. Or Jack Carter. Or simply that Michael Caine who seemed to say so much with just a flicker of one eyelash. Or with the trigger of a gun.
All pretty good echoes to have in a film, and, thankfully, Harry Brown is a pretty good film. As solid as Caine is though, it's Sean Harris' quietly terrifying drug dealer, Stretch, that just about steals the show here in a scene that will kinda linger.
RATING: 3/5
Words : Paul Byrne