'Harry Brown'

'Harry Brown' (R) (2 stars)

Writer: Gary Young
Director: Daniel Barber
Starring: Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Iain Glen, Sean Harris, Liam Cunningham

"Harry Brown is a cold, British revenge thriller that reminded me of an earlier Mel Gibson movie this year "Edge of Darkness". It has a succinct, generic title and a lead performance by an older veteran actor. The performance by Michael Caine here is very good, detailed and effective like Gibson was. Like the Gibson film, that is really all there is to recommend the movie. I felt the same about both movies, I have seen it before and I just didn't get invested in the story. It is well directed, acted but very useless in my opinion. This is basically another version of "Death Wish", the terrible Charles Bronson film from 1974 that pushed a lot of buttons back then. Now the story just seems pretty ridiculous and just an excuse to see Caine shoot dead bad guys. The story takes place in an urban setting in London where teenagers are selling drugs and harassing senior citizens. Caine plays Harry Brown who was in the army and sees one of his friends and bar mates get beaten to death by these kids. He seeks revenge while at the same time two police officers are trying to get to the bottom of it all. The only fresh thing in this movie is that one of the officers is a woman and is played very well by the radiant Emily Mortimer. I liked Mortimer, Iain Glen as Harry's friend, Liam Cunningham and Sean Harris. The performances are good and Caine is great but after the movie was over I just felt blah and indifferent. I have seen this before as recent as this year and a few years ago with Kevin Bacon's "Death Sentence" which was effective but crude and forgettable. This is really just a new "Death Wish" like the third one where senior citizens where being harassed by thugs and Bronson helped them fight back with a little bad acting involved.