Here’s my short review of UK revenge flick Harry Brown from the latest issue of jmag. One thing I didn’t manage to squeeze into the wordcount was a mention of its killer opening scene – like a low-rent remake of the first moments of Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days.

HARRY BROWN

Directed by: Daniel Barber

Starring: Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer

Country: UK

Michael Caine has always been a “working actor”, happy to accept a role now rather than wait around for something better. It’s why he’s been in so many great films as well as so many shockers. Harry Brown is somewhere in the middle.

This “vigilante pensioner” flick plays shamelessly into the story currently fuelling newspapers worldwide: KIDS THESE DAYS ARE SOCIOPATHIC MONSTERS WHO’LL KILL YOU AS SOON AS LOOK AT YOU, GRANDPA! Caine brings echoes of his legendary 1971 Get Carter hardarse to Harry – an elderly ex-marine who decides enough is enough. The emotional realism of his performance gives the movie a classiness that doesn’t mesh with its grimy, cartoonish thrills. (Especially the ridiculous digitally-added spurting blood.)

Most vigilante films pay at least a little lip-service to the fact that revenge is wrong – fun, sure, but wrong. Harry Brown has no such qualms. You’ll have to balance your desire to see Michael Caine kill teenage thugs with how dirty cheering him on might make you feel afterwards.

Other reviews this month: Fish Tank, Baghead, and True Blood: Season Two on DVD.

Issue #40 on sale now.