Harry Brown (film)

Harry Brown


Harry Brown è un film del 2009 diretto da Daniel Barber, interpretato da Michael Caine.
Un ex-marine in pensione trova morto il suo migliore amico e decide di scovare l'assassino e farsi giustizia da solo.

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Plot
Shot with a mobile phone camera, the film opens with a gang initiation, where a boy, later identified as Marky, living on a council estate in South London is made to take drugs and hold a pistol. As the scene cuts, the gang begins to "jump" him into the gang by beating him. Two teenage boys are then seen joyriding on a motorbike, harassing and shooting and killing a mother walking her child, and then fleeing only to be killed by an oncoming truck.
The eponymous Harry Brown (Michael Caine), an elderly former Royal Marine and decorated veteran of Northern Ireland, tries to be indifferent about his violent neighbourhood. He often pays visits to his hospitalized and comatose wife, and spends his days drinking and playing chess with his best friend, Leonard (David Bradley), at a pub. The landlord Sid (Liam Cunningham) is an Irishman who takes kickbacks from a pair of black marketeers, Kenny (Joseph Gilgun) and Stretch (Sean Harris). Harry is informed in the night that his wife is dying, but in order to reach the hospital before she passes away he must go through a noisy public underpass, which is a gathering spot at all hours for a local gang; he is too scared to do so and arrives too late.
After the funeral, Leonard confides in Harry that he is being bullied by some youths and shows Harry an old bayonet he now carries to defend himself, citing that the police would not help him. Leonard later wakes in his flat to find someone had pushed burning dog excrement through his mail slot.
The next day, Harry is visited by Detective Inspector Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and her tough D.S. Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles), who tell him that Leonard had been murdered. Members of a local gang, including Noel Winters (Ben Drew), are arrested, but refuse to answer questions and are released. Harry gets drunk after Leonard's funeral, and while walking home, one of Noel's gang attempt to rob him with a knife; Harry's military training suddenly reasserts itself and he turns the knife on his attacker, killing him. Frampton visits Harry again the following morning and informs him that because Leonard was killed with his own bayonet, any charges laid could be reduced to manslaughter on the basis of self-defence.Harry decides to take matters further into his own hands; he follows Kenny from Sid's pub to a squalid den where he negotiates to buy a pistol. Inside, the drugged-up dealers are growing copious amounts of cannabis and making pornography, and have one of the girls abused in these videos on their sofa, suffering from a drug overdose. Harry suggests that Stretch call an ambulance for her, to which Stretch threatens Harry. Harry kills both Stretch and Kenny, takes a bag containing handguns and money, burns down the den, and drives the girl to hospital, leaving her with £1,000. Harry's surveillance of Noel's gang leads Harry to kill a major drug-trafficker and to kidnap newest member Marky (Jack O'Connell), whom he tortures into revealing some cellphone camera footage of Leonard's murder, proving the gang's involvement. Harry uses Marky to bait Noel and another gang member into a gunfight, which ends with Noel escaping, Marky and the other member dead, and Harry having an emphysema attack, leaving him to be taken to hospital.
Insisting that the recent violence is related to a gang war, Police Superintendent Childs (Iain Glen) orders a major arrest operation, unconvinced that Harry is the vigilante as D.I. Frampton suspects. The night raids on the neighbourhood result in a massive riot. Harry walks out of the hospital, and Frampton convinces Hicock to help her stop him, but on the way the two are injured in a car crash by the rioters. Harry rescues them and takes them to Sid's pub, where Frampton tells Harry that Sid is actually Noel's uncle. Harry also discovers that Sid had been hiding Noel, but his guard drops due to his emphysema, allowing Sid to take the gun and reveal that he is just as bad as his nephew, planning to kill all three and dump them outside as riot victims. Frampton is calling for backup when Noel stops her. Sid expertly suffocates Hicock to death and instructs Noel to strangle Frampton, but Harry kills Noel with a hidden revolver. Sid quickly shoots and wounds Harry, but when he tries to finish him, Frampton's backup arrives and Sid is gunned down.
At a conference held after the riot, Superintendent Childs anounces that Frampton and the late Hicock will be given medals for their work and sacrifice, and denies any evidence of vigilante involvement in the entire case, saying that any such suggestions are unhelpful. The final scene is of a recovered Harry walking toward the underpass, which is now quiet and safe.



Jack O'Connell = Marky