DVD Review - HARRY BROWN - Crime Drama

Harry Brown (2009)

Dir. Daniel Barber

 

Few movies have excited me the way HARRY BROWN has. This is a tale of sadness and loss set against a backdrop of shocking violence sure to please any moviegoer with a yen for good story, great acting and disturbing violence. Veteran character actor Michael Caine is the titular Brown, a pensioner living in a bleak London housing estate. It is an area under siege by brutal thugs, perpetually wired and keen to kill. Daily hospital visits to his ailing wife, (whom he’d met during service as a Marine during the Troubles in Belfast) a love spanning some 50 years, are cut short by her quiet death. We also learn of his earlier loss of their young daughter in the directors scatter gun edit of her violent death early in the film, one that redefines the term “senseless”. The years of silent pain and loss are etched into Harry Brown’s face. Chess games with an old friend and a pint at the pub are all of Harry’s comings and goings. It is when these last bits of the life he knows are taken from him that Harry kicks back at the chaos around him. In committing an act of violence that surprises even himself, our man finds more than a few reasons to carry on amidst the savagery that is happening at point blank range in his tiny pocket of the world.

There have been more than a few films of late about revenge with a character falling back on the talents he swore he’d never uncork again. TAKEN comes to mind, as does the BOURNE TRILOGY, but HARRY BROWN balances on a different fulcrum. We aren’t given splashy edits and jump-cuts of his actions, Christ, he’s a septuagenarian! The tension rests on Harry in situations where he is so completely out of his element that either violent death or a failing heart have equal dominion. A nightmarish scene in a drug den rivals any event I’ve seen in a film for the tension alone. Had me absolutely riveted. The action in HARRY BROWN is sharp and bloody, while the scenes of dialogue have an honesty that only a veteran of well over 100 films can deliver

I don’t believe that in and amongst the DVD covers on the shelf right now, a picture of Michael Caine in a pea-coat looking dour, gun in hand will get many second glances but I urge fans of acting, action and dramatic anxiety to give it a shot. Besides, who the hell do I have to “do some business with” to gedda drink around here?

Trailer here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVOSfHFNlcI

Someone Saved My Life Tonight

         One night, years ago, someone saved my life. I was working in a place of ill repute and I stepped on the wrong toes. It happens in my line of work. Christ, do I have to be a diplomat 24-7? You do these things and you work in these places and make these moves and its all free and good and you walk that razor's edge with a wink and a smile but one time... One time you slip and it can all come apart. Not just the job or the friends but the LIFE that you live, the sight in your eyes and the smell of things and the air that you breathe can be in jeopardy in an instant... And it was that night. And while my eyes did not implore to friends and people that I knew, co-workers and security who should have had my back, not for anything so simple as friendship or camaraderie, but because it was your job. Well, you guys weren't there. There are still conflicting reports and stories as to why I left that place, but I tell you all, those of you that I'd known for years and worked with as long... You didn't have my back. One guy said to me one time, "When no-one has your back, its time to move your back..."
        There is a man, who, as I write this, is lying in pain from abuse and afflictions visited on him by the life that he chose. He will either succumb to his injuries or be killed. He is a bad man. He did not only make his environs the seedy underbelly of this city, he was instrumental in making it's underbelly unsuitably seedy. He is the bogeyman, the shadow beyond the trees and the piper one must pay when the tune is played.  To cross him or his "higher-ups" is tantamount to suicide. His ungovernable wrath.
         Yet one night when all of my clever finesse, all the double-speak and jibber-jabber and the ability to speak it that I have been blessed with did NOT stem the blood-dimmed tide that sought to overwhelm me did NOT suffice. Did NOT make 'em laugh, did NOT smooth things over in a situation that had gotten out of control... Until a man who someone like me, with this chip I carry on BOTH shoulders, would have never, EVER expected to have my back, had it. Not for some deep-seated instinct that told him we were brothers in a past life or that he needed to redeem himself or for God's sake be a hero, but because what he saw happening, well he thought it was bullshit.

         Friends and family may argue, but I will tell you this.That night in that place, my ass needed saving. I would not be writing this but for him. He saved my life, and for that I am eternally grateful and will never forget it.
        You made your bed, friend (and I don't call many that), but you enabled me to sleep in mine soundly. Thank you.

Antisocial Networking

    She’s 5’7. Brunette. Shoulder length hair. The face? Higher cheekbones and fantastic lips. Theres a touch of light eyeshadow, minimal mascara and something to accentuate her cheekbones. Its enough make-up that she stands out, but not enough so you won’t recognize her in the morning. She has a small clutch and she’s wearing a black tank top under a white denim half-jacket that serves absolutely no purpose but to make her look sexy, and its working. The jacket leaves the breast size to the imagination, but the cleavage in the tank top tells the jacket to fuck off. Trim waist, light jeans that start at a fantastic ass and go down inside her boots and fit her fucking perfectly. She glides in just past the main bar  and is yammering away on her cell phone. OMG and all that. Gets off the phone, stands there, looks around and then makes another call. “Where are you guys?” Looks up to the second level, waves and stutter-steps left before deciding that a right would make the distance between her and her party much shorter. BOO.
I see all this because when I drink at an establishment, I prefer to sit at the bar. The booze is about 4 feet from me and it makes the distance between me and my party much shorter. It also enables you to see who is walking in and give a quick size up of whether that person is a potential mate for long or short term lovin’. I may never speak to her, but knowing she’s in the room is half the battle. I have won exactly half of that battle.

    My issue is these other poor saps in here who have no idea what this doll looks like! Not because they aren’t paying any attention, but because they never had a chance. Why not? That damn cell phone. They don’t even know she’s there! They’re cuttin’ up an cracking shitty jokes and they are doing so at their peril. The cell phone has robbed them of any chance of speaking with this fine lady and also the ability to behave like gentlemen in her presence. Its efficiency is also putting a damper on that amazing entrance she could have made. But that's her thing.

    Gone are the days of walking into a joint and wandering aimlessly to find your squad, thereby familiarizing yourself with other patrons, albeit fleetingly. There is a confidence that one should have when walking into any socially awkward situation and a cell phone at your ear or fingertips isn’t helping it. I am immediately put off by the dude or chick who sits at the bar and is glued to the keyboard “socially interacting” via text with someone who isn’t there. Get real. I think its an Alexander Keith’s commercial that states something like, and I’m paraphrasing, “...and the friends that you wanna talk to are in the bar with you...” I know of a regular at a bar that I frequent who will laugh gaily at the text messages coming inward from God knows where and God knows who, yet she always walks in AND out of the bar alone (save for once, when a young suitor was making time and she behaved as though she was the belle of the ball). I get it, you’re popular, but you can’t seem to network socially with the people who are AT THE BAR RIGHT NOW! That is what a BAR IS FOR. THAT IS WHY WE GO. TO NETWORK SOCIALLY! WITH BOOZE! The only parallel to that would be Chatroulette! (I can’t pull my cock out at a bar... Or can I???)

    At the risk of sounding like a Gary (Oldman), I’ll restrain myself by saying, “...back in my day...”, but next time you roll into one of these joints and you don’t immediately see one of your gang, I dare you to holster that cell phone and browse the crowd. See what happens. Stroll in with confidence and a stride that makes people wonder what the fuck THEY are even doing there. It will work wonders for your confidence and you may run into an old friend or an new one. Look for me, I’ll be at the bar. No need for the celly, the platoon of baboons I hang out with can be heard from the front entrance...
   
     Now, what no-account social misfit’s crackberry do I have to smash into splinters to gedda drink around here?