Harry Brown (2009)

An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.

Director:

Daniel Barber

Writer:

Gary Young (screenplay)

Stars:

Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, David Bradley

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michael Caine	...	Harry Brown
Emily Mortimer	...	D.I. Alice Frampton
Charlie Creed-Miles	...	D.S. Terry Hicock (as Charlie Creed Miles)
David Bradley	...	Leonard Attwell
Iain Glen	...	S.I. Childs
Sean Harris	...	Stretch
Plan B	...	Noel Winters (as Ben Drew)
Jack O'Connell	...	Marky
Jamie Downey	...	Carl
Lee Oakes	...	Dean Saunders
Joseph Gilgun	...	Kenny
Liam Cunningham	...	Sid Rourke
Marva Alexander	...	Nurse #1
Liz Daniels	...	Kath Brown
Marvin Campbell	...	Stunt Neighbour (as Marvin Stewart-Campbell)

Storyline

In England, retired Royal Marine Harry Brown spends his lonely life between the hospital, where his beloved wife Kath is terminally ill, and playing chess with his only friend Leonard Attwell in the Barge pub owned by Sid Rourke. After the death of Kath, Len tells his grieving friend the local gang is harassing him and he is carrying an old bayonet for self-defence. Harry suggests he to go to the police. When Len is beaten, and stabbed to deatry detective Inspector Alice Frampton and her partner Sergeant Terry Hicock are sent to investigate. They pay Harry a visit but don't have good news; the police have not found any other evidence, other than the bayonet, in order to arrest the hoodlums. This mean that should the case go to trial the gang would claim self-defence. Harry Brown sees that justice will not be granted and decides to take matters into his own hands.

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Plot Keywords:

self defense | vigilantism | fellatio | vigilante | hooded sweatshirt | 

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Taglines:

Every man has a breaking point.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

12 avec avertissement

Did You Know?

Trivia

Sir Michael Caine has played characters with the name Harry in seven other movies: Harry Palmer (five times), Harry Tristan Dean (once), and Harry Anders (once).

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Goofs

Harry Brown makes a reference to the abdominal wound of the gun dealer as probably involving his liver. The liver is in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, the bullet wound was in the left lower quadrant making this reference inaccurate.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Man1: Do you want it, fella, huh?
Man2: Yeah.
Man1: Because you wanted this yesterday, brother. You wanna do this shit?
Man2: Let's go.

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Connections

References Pac Pac (1980)

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Soundtracks

I Love London (Delta Heavy Remix)
Performed by Crystal Fighters
Written by Gilbert Vierich, Sebastian Pringle, Graham Dickson
Produced by Crystal Fighters
Remixed by Delta Heavy
Published by Copyright Control
(p) 2009 Crystal Fighters exclusively licensed to Kitsune

User Reviews

Retired Royal Marine , masterfully played by Michael Caine , carries out a bloody vendetta against murderers , junkies and punks

This is the known story of a man become into vigilante . An elderly ex-serviceman and widower , Harry Brown , (Michael Caine) looks to avenge his best friend (David Bradley)'s murder by doling out his own form of justice . As a retired man turned vigilante and taking the law into his own hands as judge , jury and executioner. As every man has a breaking point . Harry turns the one-man vigilante when his friend is attacked , beaten and then stabbed to death in an underground passage carried out by furious band formed by some ominous punks . Then he stalks the slums of London and takes the law into his own hands, searching vengeance on crooks, hoodlums, druggies , muggers, pimps , making the neighborhood safer and bumping off delinquents and street scum . Meanwhile , police officers D.I. Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and D.S. Terry Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles) are investigating the deeds and Police Superintendent Childs (Iain Glen) orders a major arrest operation believing the recent violence is related to a gang war. The late-night raids on the neighbourhood result in a massive riot .

This interesting picture has suspense , emotion , intrigue , thrills and lots of violence . It's certainly thrilling , though the morality may be questionable , even in this time, as the spectators were clearly on the Harry Brown's side . Michael Caine with his usual top-notch acting displays efficiently his weapon such as ¨Harry the Dirty¨ and killing mercilessly nasties . Michael Caine saw a lot of himself in the character of Harry Brown, e.g. they're both combat veterans , as Harry is a Marine who served in Northern Ireland, Caine served in the British Army during the Korean war , and Caine lived in the same area that Brown does , it was things like these that drew him to the film . Secondary cast is frankly excellent such as Emily Mortimer , Charlie Creed-Miles , David Bradley , Iain Glen , Sean Harris, Ben Drew and special mention to Liam Cunningham as Sid Rourke . This is Daniel Barber's nice feature debut , he's now shooting ¨The keeping room¨ with Hailee Steinfeld , Sam Worthington and Brit Marling .

This exciting and above average film belong to ¨Vigilante genre¨ whose main representations are ¨Charles Bronson's Death Wish¨ , successful crime thriller that created the Vigilante genre with Bronson as the main star such as ¨Death wish II¨ ¨Death wish III¨ , ¨Death Wish 4 : The crackdown¨and ¨Death Wish: The face of death¨ and , of course , ¨Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry¨ movies , such as ¨The enforcers¨, ¨Sudden impact¨ and ¨The dead pool¨ . Furthermore , other notorious movies on the ¨Revenger¨ genre that achieved their splendor in the eighties are the followings : ¨Exterminator¨ I and II with Robert Ginty ; ¨Vigilante¨ by William Lusting with Robert Foster , Fred Williamson ; ¨Walking the edge¨ by Norbert Meisel with Robert Foster and Nancy Kwan ; ¨Dark Angel¨ with Betty Russell ; ¨Steele Justice¨ with Martin Kove ¨; ¨The Punisher¨ with Dolph Lundgren , ¨Joe Don Baker's Walking tall¨ saga ; ¨Lorenzo Lamas's Snake eater¨ saga , ¨Arnold's Raw Deal¨ , ¨Stallone's Cobra¨ and many others .

Details

Official Sites:

Samuel Goldwyn Films [United States]

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 January 2011 (France)

Also Known As:

Harry Brown

Filming Locations:

A12 in Marks Gate, Essex, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$7,300,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$173,353, 2 May 2010

Gross USA:

$1,818,681

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$10,371,451

Company Credits

Production Co:

Marv Films, UK Film Council, HanWay Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min 97 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1