Harry Brown (2009) YIFY - Download Movie TORRENT

I recently reacquainted myself with Harry Brown which I hadn't seen for 7 or 8 years, to find that the past decade has been kind to it. It seems even better now, than when I first saw it and thought it was pretty good then. Harry Brown represents a fine debut feature film from director Daniel Barber and it is surprising to find he has only directed one other production since.The story follows Harry Brown, a widowed, Royal Marines veteran who had served and seen plenty of action in Northern Ireland, living on a London housing estate plagued by youth crime. After a violent gang murders his friend, Harry decides to take justice into his own hands.The story outwardly would seem to follow any number of revenge thriller templates, perhaps most obviously Death Wish. But Harry Brown is one of the most grounded depictions of conflicted vigilantism that I've seen. The set-ups are realistic and the outcomes believable, though undoubtedly exaggerated at times for dramatic emphasis. And make no mistake, this is a suspenseful, dark, but thrilling film, that carries both an emotional and physical punch.In the title role Sir Michael Caine is sublime and completely in his element as the aged ex-warrior who is seemingly forced into actions that he thought he'd probably left behind decades previous. Imagine a rehabilitated, very senior, Jack Carter, who'd survived the events we saw in Get Carter. That sums up our Harry, who crosses paths with Set. Insp. Alice Frampton, who oozes genuine sympathy and condolences for his losses, but later suspects him of taking the law literally into his own hands. Emily Mortimer is excellent, as the talented detective, genuinely trying to make a difference in some of the worst of London's slum areas. One of the great strengths of the film are the dual storylines of both the protagonist and the police officer who feels a need to keep looking over his shoulder. There are also great turns from Game of Thrones alumni, Liam Cunningham, Iain Glen and David Bradley. Mention must also be made of Ben Drew, better known apparently as a rap singer called Plan B. He manages to personify an inherited evil in his role as gang leader Noel Winters.Despite not really being an action movie, Harry Brown does feature a couple of quite electrifying set pieces; one involving a visit to a sordid drug den and another being the climactic aftermath to a riot in the housing estate central to the story. As mentioned above, there have been other films like this before, but none quite as believable. Daniel Barber has created a debut film that is maybe not for everyone, but is gripping from start to finish.

Harry Brown is a pensioner, and former Marine, living in a very run-down apartment complex (or is it flat) in the urban quarter of London. It's a crappy place to be; kids ling their drugs and guns, and beat up those who happen to venture just a little far out into the path. One of those is Harry's friend, Leonard Atwell, who tries to defend himself against the scum on the streets and winds up stabbed with his own knife. Brown is distraught over this (already he's been all alone since his wife just died and a daughter died many years before, perhaps during childbirth or as a child), and knows the cops won't do much about it despite doing some investigations. So, Brown takes his skills as a former Marine, before facing off against the Northern Irish years before, and uses it to exact payback.Immediately moviegoers will flash to Gran Torino, as a story of a lonely, grumpy old man mixing it up with gang-bangers in a part of town he should have moved out of. But it actually owes more to Taxi Driver in some part- an ex-Marine wiping "the scum off the streets"- and of course Charles Bronson in Death Wish. But as Michael Caine points out in interviews, there was a certain underlying joy Bronson had with his character of Paul Kersey in the Death Wish movies, even in the first one which was most gritty. This film, about the horror of gang violence and drugs and prostitution as an everyday occurrence, really hits the spot far better than the shots of gang-bangers in Eastwood's film. In fact, I would go as far as to say Harry Brown trumps Gran Torino in the department of being about "something" (Torino about racism, Brown about vigilantism).And at the center of a film directed with an artful, patient eye by newcomer Daniel Barber, and written with wisdom and tough attitude when it needs to be by Gary Young, is Michael Caine's performance. He's so good in a film like this because we believe this is Harry Brown, or what he might be like, and we can see ourselves in a part of Brown due to Caine's sympathy (or even empathy) with the character. This is a man of reserve, but also resolve, and when he takes to the streets it's because it's really a last resort, a kind of fight for survival as well as revenge, and Caine doesn't hold back when Brown needs to shed some tears, or to have that fierceness in his eyes against these young punks. One such scene, which I'll not soon forget, is after he plugs a bullet into the gut of a junkie dumbass who tries to pull a gun on Brown as he's purchasing a few weapons, and tells a story about a fellow officer he was fighting alongside who had to die in the trenches because of a lack of medical care.It's one of the best scenes I've ever seen with Caine in it, and overall the film provides him the opportunity for another piece of superb work. Less remarkable, though still decent, is Emily Mortimer, who provides some sensitivity but also is a little soft in a way for the character of a no-nonsense detective hot on the heels of the Atwell/young-punks case (in some scenes, frankly, I just didn't buy her as a detective). But this is so small a flaw that it's hard to judge the film against it. Harry Brown takes its subject matter by the throat, treats it cinematically with care, and when it's violent you get shaken up and when Brown is in the shadows one suddenly wonders why Caine didn't play Batman in Nolan's movies. A serious near-classic on street violence and revenge. 9.5/10

Harry Brown

2009

Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller

Harry Brown

2009

Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller

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