Harry Brown. 2009. UK. Directed by Daniel Barber. Screenplay by Gary Young. With Michael Caine, Emily Mortmier, Charlie Creed-Miles. DCP courtesy Samuel Goldwyn Films. 103 min.
Caine, at 75, gives one of his most convincing late-career performances in this dark fable of vengeance, a throwback to Get Carter (and, to some affronted critics, Dirty Harry and Death Wish) about a widowed ex-Marine pensioner who avenges a friend’s senseless murder by ridding his neighborhood of teenage gangsters and drug dealers. The film was shot on the mean streets of South London—burnt-out council flats and claustrophobia and despair—the place that Caine called his boyhood home (as had Charlie Chaplin): “The Elephant (which is what anyone local called the Elephant and Castle, ideally accompanied by a hard, unblinking stare for extra menace) was a tough neighborhood. I learnt from an early age the importance of having friends who’ve got your back.”