Some might even consider first-time director David Barber lucky for landing such a great actor to play the title role, but Barber brings his own strengths to the project as well. The decision to open the film with gritty handheld footage of an innocent woman being gunned down in the park is both unsettling and necessary to setting the stage for the story that follows, while Brown’s back-alley meeting with a couple of drug-addicted gun dealers makes for one of the most suspenseful cinematic moments in recent memory. This is the kind of movie that not only gets your heart beating, but spurs applause from the audience with each vengeful kill.
In the final act, director Barber plays a trump card with a brilliant twist, set among riots caused by heavy handed policing. The group violence illustrates that the powers that be with the Met don’t always know best and Harry discovers that the corruption within the housing estate runs deeper than first thought. Overall, Harry Brown is a well intended piece of British film making, using the great cast to the best of their abilities to push the story along. The dialogue is snappy and well paced, delivered with conviction and feeling.
In many ways, Harry Brown is a riff on the classic Western. Harry is good, the drug dealers are bad, and he’s going to take care of them, plain and simple. For many viewers, that’s enough. Like I said earlier in the review, Sir Michaels performance is superb and Mortimer's simply beautiful.
Harry Brown is without doubt the scariest film I’ve seen this year, it’s just too plausible and all the more terrifying for that. If you have the stomach for violent scenes and want a haunting view of society unraveling from both ends, pay a visit to Mr Harry Brown.
