Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.
Harry Brown is carried almost entirely by Michael Caine's commanding, nuanced performance as a grieving, isolated war veteran pushed to vigilantism — it's the clear standout. The plot is a fairly conventional British revenge-thriller that hits familiar beats without much surprise, and the urban decay setting, while well-realized, doesn't transcend the genre. The cinematography is competent and gritty but unremarkable. The ending is serviceable but somewhat abrupt and tidy. Novelty is low — the vigilante-elder premise had been done (Gran Torino came out a year earlier) and the film doesn't reinvent or distinctively subvert the formula.