Friday, September 24, 2010

Harry Brown [2009]



My hopes from the short description and from the poster was this would be a bit of an over the top action film like Taken or a continuance of Caine’s best - Get Carter.

My fears were that this film was going to be an style over substance – Guy Ritchie type of film where Caine would be delivering lines that weren’t designed to be said – just written to be clever.

What I got was more of a heavy drama that felt like it should be a BBC produced mini-series – with just the right amount of hard violence and a very good story.

The story was a bit broken – and didn’t really feel to have been resolved fully – there was a bit more meat to the story to be explored. To be presented in a movie format rather than a BBC mini-series I felt like it needed a few random touches to complete it – which was kind of disappointing. There were a bit too many “happy” coincidences for my likes – considering the hard path it was going drama wise. I almost felt ripped off by the end of the film.

It was good – but the first time director Daniel Barber didn’t use a couple of well written scenes – that could’ve brought a lot of emotional tension to the story to the best of his ability. It’s also one of those movies where a good story, a few good ideas and a few interesting pieces happen to carry it through the weak parts of the film.

It was well acted – and though I wanted more from several aspects of the film – I’m still giving it a 4 out of 5.

1 comment:

  1. Heh - for a second there I thought you were going to give it a thumb's down. Good to see it gave you enough to like.

    This was one of the flicks that pulled me through the summer of crap...the weekend where everyone else went to see DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, I soaked up this bit of Britty Goodness.

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