Directed by Daniel Barber

A very English version of Gran Torino - old stager [= revered screen actor] is at first brow-beaten and isolated by deteriorating modern life, chiefly in the shape of the hooded young, then is galvanised to rise above it to save his community - this film, like Is Anybody There? is a terrible waste of Michael Caine's undoubted screen presence. He's simply too good for it, as his portrayal of a lonely and fearful old man that we are allowed to see before the melodrama sets in, shows.

Harry Brown (Caine) is a veteran marine who lives in a troubled neighbourhood where scary teenagers run riot, dull-eyed on drugs, shooting at mothers and children in parks and making the public spaces a no-go area for ordinary citizens. The opening scenes convey affectingly the fears of so many older people living in deprived areas, fears which unfortunately films like this prey on, utilise and exacerbate. As usual the young people are shown without sympathy or character other than nasty, violent and/or cowardly. Police, on the other hand, in the persons of Emily Mortimer (tough but sensitive cookie having a hard time making her way in a male-dominated workplace) and the seen-it-all-before Charlie Creed-Mills, are at first presented in a fairly credible way. But when Harry's old mate Leonard, his last friend in the world, dies confronting the hoodies, Harry's apotheosis from dear old bloke into avenging angel is nigh, starting with some very nasty action on the drug dealers which is almost risible in its improbability, and culminating in totally over the top scenes of full scale riot, death and destruction with a twist in the plot that defies any already strained credibility remaining. The closing scenes of peaceful post-Harry estate life that rise from the ashes of this apocalypse are a joke. If only it were so easy, 'Arry.

It's a shame that a film which starts out with the possibility of a real portrayal of life as it is lived by the old in many pockets of desolate Britain should so soon sell itself out to become yer average vigilante movie.

Seen at Cinema Days, Empire Cinema, Rubery, Birmingham, 3 October 2009