rotten youth

A short review of the movie Harry Brown.



The movie follows Harry Brown (Michael Caine) who is retired but lives in a suburb that has turned into a playground for gangster teenagers. His wife dies leaving him a widdower, but when his best friend is murdered in a gruesome way by the teenage gangsters Harry takes the law into his own hands. The police seems clueless as always and thus, Harry goes on a spree...however - this is not an action movie. It is slow paced, but has strong impact at the right moments. It's fun to see an old man take on youngsters and the theme of revenge is always strong. Michael Caine also portrays his character brilliantly as a subtle, calm man, who has a hidden side to him that is revealed when he's had enough of living in fear.
One of the strongest scenes in my opinion is, when Harry goes to see drug dealers pretending to be looking to buy a weapon. The drug dealers are just so... f-'d up and out of this world that they creeped me out.

The theme, one might argue, is the f-'d up youth of Britain. This theme I found in several other movies:

Cherry Tree Lane - not recommending it as it's a highly terrifying view into a home invasion by teenage gangsters. A lot of long drastic scenes with close ups of the character puts you uncomfortably close to the happening. The whole movie seems only to have the purpose to bring to you the very last scene (which I'm not going to tell :)

Eden Lake - also not recommending it. Unless you like nasty...and cruel. That's the theme here. The movie left me feeling very bad which is maybe then successful in its goal. It's the story of a couple on a weekend retreat that is terrorized by a gang of youths. I have to say tho that I never really bought the fact that the man couldn't just whoop those teenagers asses..


The music in this movie somehow sounded familiar and had a very similar touch with The Descent. Indeed, I found its the same composer David Julyan. He is also, turns out, the composer for Heartless - the fourth movie you could count in the category as the movies above. The music for Heartless however had a theme that I noticed was inspired by the music from The Warlock. I am curious if anybody else noticed this.

The movie is interesting. It tells the story of a young man who is deformed by a large birthmark over his face. He is offered a deal by...the devil? to have a new chance at a life he never had. But dealing with the devil is never never a good idea...