Review Tuesday: 'Harry Brown'

Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. Sir Michael Caine [1], born Maurice Micklewhite in March 1933, has starred in over 100 films, and is among my favourite actors. Aged 77, when most actors have long since stopped working, Caine not only continues to star in films, but does so brilliantly. Who, I ask you, could play a down-at-heel elderly British ex-marine better than Sir Michael? I can’t think of anyone. Caine plays this part – our eponymous hero – in the 2009 drama Harry Brown [2, 3]. The movie’s set in the seedy housing projects of South London. After Harry’s beloved wife Kath dies from an illness, his only mate Len is brutally murdered by local hoodlums. Harry’s left without relatives or friends, so there’s nothing left to stop him avenging Len’s murder after the police don’t charge the perpetrators. Using his former Marine skills Harry takes the law into his own hands, violently rids his neighbourhood of the undesirables, and literally saves a police officer’s life into the bargain. As a by-product he doesn’t object when the police claim all the credit. By the way, the police don’t believe he was the avenger – because he’s old and he’s incapacitated by emphysema. How wrong they were. Though it’s pretty violent at times, this is a terrific film. I rate it four stars. Its story’s somewhat redolent of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino [4]. And it shows that old guys can be a force to be reckoned with. Take note, Medical Council of Australia [5].