Okay, so I was on my soap box just a bit in my prior movie moment post, decrying the truly sorry state of our present medical system and all that. However, it’s true that, under any system, there’s something about being a doctor that’s a little dangerous. For one thing, there’s the little matter of ego. Saving lives can be a heady experience and some folks get a bit, er, overwhelmed by the experience.
And, let’s face it, some doctors from other countries have even worse moral failings.
Most people will take one look at the premise of Daniel Barber’s “Harry Brown” and immediately liken it to a British version of “Gran Torino.” The two films certainly share a lot of similarities – both are about older men battling a gang of young punks, and both star one of the greatest actors of their generation – but where “Harry Brown” differs is in the violent behavior of its title character and his victims. The end result is a little more like “Death Wish,” and although it may be difficult to imagine someone as mild-mannered as Michael Caine in a vigilante role, it’s exactly what makes “Harry Brown” so damn entertaining.
You wouldn’t think he was even capable of such violence when you first meet Harry Brown (Caine), an army veteran whose days consist of meticulous visits his sick wife in the hospital and playing chess with his only friend, Leonard (David Bradley), at their favorite pub. But when his wife passes away and Leonard is killed by some local street thugs who had been harassing him for months, Harry finds himself all alone in a town dominated by crime. After the police detectives (Emily Mortimer and Charlie Creed-Miles) assigned to Leonard’s murder case fail to catch the kids involved, Harry takes it upon himself to track down those responsible and teach them a lesson in how to treat your elders.
It’s been a while since Michael Caine played the part of the action star, and while he’s not doing anything too physically demanding as Harry Brown, it’s a nice throwback to his earlier films. He’s like Jack Carter with an AARP card, and though he may seem harmless at first, once Brown picks up a gun, he immediately becomes the most dangerous man on the block. Only an actor like Caine could provide the gravitas needed to sell such a potentially outlandish role, but once you accept him as someone capable of committing such acts of violence, it allows for some of the more darkly comical moments to exist without coming off as parody. Unfortunately, Caine is the only bright spot in the cast. Emily Mortimer doesn’t have very much to do as the detective suspicious of Brown, while Liam Cunningham is underused as the owner of the pub.
That’s hardly the fault of the actors, however, as the film is primarily designed as a vehicle for its lead star. Some might even consider first-time director David Barber lucky for landing such a great actor to play the title role, but Barber brings his own strengths to the project as well. The decision to open the film with gritty handheld footage of an innocent woman being gunned down in the park is both unsettling and necessary to setting the stage for the story that follows, while Brown’s back-alley meeting with a couple of drug-addicted gun dealers makes for one of the most suspenseful cinematic moments in recent memory. This is the kind of movie that not only gets your heart beating, but spurs applause from the audience with each vengeful kill. It’s definitely not one of Caine’s better films, but “Harry Brown” is a real crowd-pleaser nonetheless.
Now, while I’ve certainly never made a secret of my politics here, I don’t generally use this particular locale to vent on strictly political matters. And so, it is not in the spirit of persuading anyone to, say, call wavering congressmembers (especially if you live in their district, or even close by) to encourage them to vote for the president’s health reform package tomorrow. No, it is strictly a coincidence that I will be presenting movie moments relating to importance of health care this weekend. I’ll start with this scene, possibly NSFW for some words blurted by Helen Hunt, especially if you work in health insurance.
Of course, HMOs aren’t inherently evil. (I like mine, Kaiser, a non-profit, but even that has its considerable issues.) The problem is the stranglehold of enormous, for-profit bureaucracies. In saner systems, I’m sure not all doctors are as cool as Harold Ramis is in “As Good as it Gets,” but in many of those places they really do still make house calls. This scene, however, which depicts nothing more special than a competent and conscientious professional doing his job in the best way he knows how, remains a complete fantasy for the vast majority of us and will for some time. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
Set in the picturesque East Midlands, Nick Whitfield’s “Skeletons” stars Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley as Davis and Bennett, a pair of traveling salesmen who literally clean skeletons out of closets. The Procedure, as it’s known, magically transports them into their clients’ deepest, darkest secrets, where they can then assume control of the people within the memory and free them of their guilty conscience. When their boss, The Colonel (Jason Isaacs), assigns them to an especially tricky case with the promise of a promotion to higher-profile clients like politicians, Davis and Bennett jump at the chance. But after a rare mistake leaves Davis in an indefinite trance, The Colonel arrives in town to clean up the mess.
Based on Whitfield’s 2006 short film of the same name, “Skeletons” is very much a tale of two movies. While the first half is a decidedly more comedic take on the skeleton cleaning business – with several laughs coming from Davis and Bennett’s humorous relationship – the second half gets a whole lot darker. The stakes are raised and the mysticism behind The Procedure plays a bigger role in the story. Whitfield never quite explains how everything works, but he shows the audience enough that you sort of just take his word for it. It’s a one-of-a-kind idea that’s ultimately undone by a confusing final act, and although it probably worked better in its shorter format, “Skeletons” is still something you have to see at least once. And even then, regardless of whether you liked it or not, you might want to watch it again just in case you missed something the first time around.
It’s a bit late for a Friday night news dump –and most all of you will be reading this on Saturday morning — but here’s the news…
* Chris Evans has been offered the part of Captain America, but will he accept?
* Christopher Nolan’s multi-star Philip Dick-esque new movie is generating interesting, of course.
* That word about Tim Burton doing an stop-motion version of “The Addams Family” going back to the characters’ cartoon roots struck me as a perfectly reasonable idea. Charles Addams brilliant cartoons have never really be transferred to the screen in quite the fashion they deserve, so why not take another whack, says me. I any case, the whole story appears to be premature.
* Demi Moore and Nia Vardalos: Twitter heroines.
* Friday’s over now. Is Leo the Lion closer to having a new tamer?
* Speaking of lion tamers, Carl Icahn is at the Lion’s gate. (Sorry.)
* Wow, Jeff Bridges was really a lock for the Oscar. George Clooney did his classy Cary Grant thing again and voted for him. Weirdly enough, much as I just about worship Bridges, I actually think Clooney was better in his nominated role than Bridges in his.
* Christoph Waltz wowed the world as Col. Landa, but what he really wants to do, aside from being America’s new go-to bad guy, is direct, at least once. Good for him for striking while the iron is hot, and it’s very hot for him.
* Woody Allen is having second thoughts, it appears, about casting France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, in his new movie.
* The ultra-hawkish rightwing’s answer to having more successful political thrillers is apparently the same as their longstanding and unchanging prescription for foreign policy: more mindless brutality, please. On the other hand, I might pay to see Gene Simmons’ head explode in a ball of flame, though I’m not advocating it.
* Which is not to say there aren’t some conservatives who don’t have something to teach us liberals. The subtly and thoughtfully right-leaning cinephile Bill Ryan, via Dennis the C, takes apart the latest highly irritaining controversy involving the always irritaining Armond White.
* I can’t say I actually know the man really at all, but film distributor turned filmmaker turned back to film distributor Jeff Lipsky and I have a bit of history (discussed in my interview with him from 2007). His thoughts on returning to the biz are some interesting inside baseball and most of them seem to make a fair amount of sense. His movie love is sincere, even as his tastes are quite different than mine. And it’s interesting and hopeful to see an Indie guy still excited about theatrical filmgoing. But why on earth does he feel the need to single out the aforementioned Armond White for praise? I could go on…
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