Harry Brown

Reviews
Guardian Review - Liberal - Highlights of Review

Michael Caine gets his tastiest, nastiest role since Get Carter in this vigilante-revenge thriller set in the badlands of south-east London. His Harry Brown is a widower in his 70s, living in a council flat on a rough estate, on medication for his emphysema.

Daniel Barber's film occupies an interesting position on a certain type of Britfilm continuum with Ken Loach at one end and Nick Love at the other; it starts quite near the former and ends very near the latter. Long, ­interestingly protracted scenes show Harry getting effortfully out of bed, ­eating a sad lonely breakfast, and dozing off in the sofa of an evening. But when he discovers the need for violence, things speed up.

For my money, Harry Brown is at its best at its midway point, the Loach/Love cusp – when Harry realises that he can and will do something about the yobs. What a tremendous role for Caine. I can't imagine anyone else carrying it off.

The Telegraph - Conservative - Highlights of Review

Michael Caine is the new, if pouchy, face of zero tolerance, as a pensioner on a housing estate riddled with drug-dealing, gun-toting feral youth. When they kill his friend (David Bradley) he steps up as a geriatric avenger. Daniel Barber’s luridly brutal debut goes quickly way over the top, dignifying Harry’s crowd-pleasing revenge spree largely by making the police (Emily Mortimer?!) look like total scaredy-cats.

Summary

It seems as though media newspapers have taken less on the focus of how teenagers are represented and focused on what Michael Caine is doing well, they seem to prefer to look at the acting rather than the representation of the youth.