HARRY BROWN (2009 - Cert 18)

Michael Caine has had a hell of a career, including some classics sitting alongside some proper stinkers, but in recent years he seems to have been reduced to bit part roles in Christopher Nolan films. Alfred the butler here, Leo DiCaprio’s dad there. He does a decent job with the parts but 90 seconds of screen time in a film doesn’t do the good man justice.

Harry Brown is a proper leading role for Caine, it’s the titular character and the whole film hangs on him and his performance. Brown is a former marine, now a pensioner who turns vigilante when his best mate is killed by the hoodies who terrorise the estate in which he lives. On paper it sounds like a perfect role for Caine in the twilight of his career, bit of emotion and trauma for the thespian in him but also plenty of vengeance and anger for the younger spirit that continues to live on.

At the opening of the film he is very impressive, he doesn’t just look old (as he actually is), he also acts old. He has a weary resignation etched onto his face, going through the same routine every morning, life doesn’t seem as though it’s worth living. He also moves as an old man, back hunched over slowly ambling his way to the hospital to see his sick wife. The scenes where he shares a pint with his mate Lennie in the pub are sad to watch. They idle the hours away playing chess, complaining about the wrongs of the modern world while pining for the better days in the past. I almost watched in disbelief as I saw Caine as I had never seen him before, seemingly on his last legs. 

Then the tragic death occurs and the film shifts. As does Harry Brown, and consequently Caine’s performance. Gone is the weariness, replaced by a steely determination as he calls on his marine training. In terms of character development, it’s job well done by Caine, however, all of the good work in the physical aspect of the role is lost as he starts running around with guns and knives, like an elderly Rambo. Although he does it just about adequately, it’s out of sync with what went before it and all feels a bit silly. One moment, he's the sad, tearful bloke in the corner of a pub, the next he's Jason Statham's military trained Uncle. 

It’s a shame because it’s a very interesting concept - I’m sure there is a part in all of us that would love to speak up on the bus when a nasty piece of work is being horrible to an old Doris, and there is a film to be made or a story to be told about the everyman fighting back. This film is not it though, despite it being desperate to be the one. 

Daniel Barber the director (his first film) clearly wants this film to be a bit of social commentary as well as entertainment. At time these attempts work, such as the film culminating in a riot and the inadequacies of the police to, but at others it feels a obvious and spelt out - the press conference close to proceedings is not effective and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. As far as Barber is concerned, the film looks the part, but that is as good as it gets.

The supporting cast is a bit of a let down as well, Emily Mortimer never believable as the police woman in charge of the investigation. Mind you, if you've got Caine being Chuck Norris, I suppose you think you can get away with anything. Ben Drew (aka Plan B for those of the music persuasion) is the lead hoodie and is decent enough, but being nasty and using rude words isn't particularly stretching on the acting front. 

It promises on the premise and at the beginning but it quickly devolves into an incidental film that believes it is much more than that, becoming more and more stupid until it reaches an ending that is very Eastenders meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, ensuring that all credibility is seen off with an ASBO.

INCEPTION (2010)

I must admit, I've stopped buying myself DVD's to add to the collection, especially Blu-Rays. With Lovefilm, the PS3, Sky film channels, a mum that doesn't seem to know that you can actually rent DVD's these days, there's little point in me filling up my small one-bed flat with rows and rows of DVD's. Having said that, Inception was an exception to the rule. I was always going to get this one, and Blu-Ray was a must. So, on New Years Day, Spag bol made, I plonked myself down on the sofa to revisit Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster, and as I did so, I wanted to try and explain why I was so desperate to get my hands on this on it's release and why UK cinema-goers loved it so much, pushing it into number 4 in the UK box office in 2010.



Leo DiCaprio plays Tom Cobb, who heads up a team of thieves. But they are no ordinary thieves, they steal thoughts and information which means the vaults they are cracking are people's minds, and the best way to do this is through the dreams of the 'subjects'. Cobb is offered one final job (it's always the final jobs that are the hardest aren't they?) but instead of theft, he must plant an idea - Inception. An apparent impossibility. Nolan, who wrote and directed, has really come up with a genius idea here for an action film. It means that he can do whatever he wants, wherever he wants - no location is beyond the realms of possibility. Irritating things such as gravity and common sense are eradicated immediately. However, if anyone knows Nolan, it's not going to be that straightforward and he isn't going to pin a whole film on one good idea. He adds depth and complex themes by using sub-plots involving corporate espionage and a complicated father/son relationship as well as a back story for Cobb that puts the whole operation in jeopardy.

Cobb has a team in place to help him with this job, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and Dileep Rao, each having a specific job, just like an orthodox bank job. Ellen Page plays the architect, it's her job to create the dream world and this premise gives some tremendous scenes where Nolan toys with our perceptions of what is possible. Tom Hardy, pretty much stealing the show here, plays a fraudster, he impersonates other people in the dream world, again an idea that gives Nolan's imagination the opportunity to run riot. And what a riot it is. The action set pieces are a wonder to behold. Fights in corridors that roll, defying gravity, a massive shoot out in an arctic base (very Bond), a kidnap scene in torrential rain as a freight train batters city streets in to submission. Nolan's execution of action is expertly done, every stunt and special effect feels physical, it feels real. Even where CGI is used, it feels weighty, none of the light, bouncy Spiderman effects here. 

As I mentioned previously though, it isn't just this aspect that makes the film so appealing. Nolan wouldn't let one of his films be so superficial and shallow. Cobb's back story about his wife has a darkness and an edge to it, and as it slowly creeps into his sub-conscious you really feel that he is out of control and that he is on the brink of madness. Another fine performance from Leo, really becoming a fine actor and choosing films that are challenging and roles that have a depth, something for him to really get his teeth into. Tom Hardy is all machismo and is great to watch, Page and Gordon-Levitt feel under-used and as though they are going through the motions, Cillian Murphy is always a pleasure to watch (I just wish he was in more), Tom Berenger pops up with a nice cameo, bit of Michael Caine, and the late, great Pete Postlethwaite is dependable as always with the little screen time he is given.

The second viewing of this film did chuck up a negative I'm afraid though. Some of the dialogue at times felt laden with exposition, which I suppose is inevitable when you are dealing with a plot as complex as this - dreams within a dream, within a dream, all coming together at the end - but when you have actors as fine as this on show, it's a shame that some of the dialogue is limited to pointing us in the right direction. Having said that, it's never spelt out to us, we are given freedom to come to conclusions ourselves - Nolan clearly respects his audience.

This negative though is a minor blip on an otherwise faultless film and it is a measure of Nolan's stock in Hollywood at the moment - off the back of the Batman films, a studio has given him a substantial wedge of money, left him to his own devices and this is what he has come up with. An imaginative, expertly crafted, action thriller, set inside the minds of it's protagonists with an ending that exhilarates and moves you in equal measure with the final frame continuing to rattle around in your brain long after the closing credits.

This film's success, and that of Nolan's Batman reboot, is proof that we want films with substance and you can create an action film that can stimulate the grey matter and still rake it in at the box office. Michael Bay take note.