You failed to maintain your weapon, son.

Harry Brown

(2009)

The Mail readership-rousing premise and Caine holding forth on how it's a significant statement about our times aside, this makes for a first class revenge thriller.

Daniel Barber has a fine eye for composition and imbues the proceedings with a more Hollywood dynamic than we tend to see in British cinema (I expect he'll be making big budget movies in the US in no time).

There's nothing particularly special about the script, which is chock full of caricatures aside from Harry himself (all the better to amp up sympathy with Caine, of course), and Emily Mortimer's character should perhaps have been ditched altogether (or written/cast in a more integrated way) but Barber energises the proceedings to make for gripping viewing.

****

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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