Harry Brown

This Death Wish with an English accent benefits from director Daniel Barber's sophisticated and stylish approach to the pulpy subject matter. Of course, it also helps that Michael Caine stars as the titular vengeful vigilante, bringing depth and complexity to the flawed but sympathetic character of Harry Brown, a pensioner living in a decaying London flat who lost his daughter years ago and is now visiting his dying wife in the hospital. When Harry's best friend is killed by local thugs and the police fail to make any arrests, the aging former soldier takes matters into his own hands—at first by accident, but then with grim determination as the corpses begin to pile up. In purely narrative terms, Harry Brown is a fairly standard-issue revenge story, but it towers over wretched Hollywood versions of the formula, depicting a gritty, realistic milieu in contrast to over-the-top American movies like 2007's Death Sentence (and even when Barber shows us something horrendously awful, he adds a touch of sly surrealism). Caine delivers a convincing performance, turning what might have been a cheap melodrama into a rather moving tale of an elderly man's valedictory crusade against callous brutality. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary (with director Daniel Barber, producer Kris Thykier, and Michael Caine), deleted scenes (17 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are a “movieIQ” track and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a film anchored by a winning central performance.] (F. Swietek)