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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Do me a favor. Pull the trigger.

Do you recommend movies to your friends? I actually, try not to. At least in person, anyway. I always stress that I liked it. That's it. Here's a snippet of text between me and a friend from the other day.  Riveting.

Haspe: Have u ever seen 'Harry Brown.' Starring Michael Caine??
Haspe: This dude at the gym keeps telling me to watch it.
Me: No. It's a British gangster movie, right?
Haspe: I think so. The dude recommending it is this hilarious Cajun. Total character. But all he says is "dat movies rough man. Ain't nuthin nice about it. Rough."

I remember when I was a kid, we used to spend an hour in the video store trying to figure out what we wanted to watch (theatrically, we just saw everything). Recommendations might come from the clerk, or we'd just go with the coolest/lamest cover. Once, some doucher whole-heartedly recommended this. Goodness. Anyway, now, things are different. Now, you might hit up a trusted website (or a genius movie-blog). Or, you might get a text from 5,000 miles away, referencing what was more-than-likely a half-naked Cajun man. You know, that old story.
Pulling a knife on Harry? Bad move, brotha.
This guy's boss is record-setting creepy. Yeesh.
So was Foghorn Leghorn right about Harry Brown? Yes. This movie is rough. The opening scene is actually one of the more horrible things I've seen in quite some time. The home-video quality makes it much more chilling. Much.

The violence is shockingly effective. You have Michael Caine (who is just awesome, right? Like, Duvall-esque) as your star, so you think things like might be a little classy. Not so much. When people get it, it's fairly hardcore. Blood spurts. A lot. Unfortunately, it's of the CGI-variety, so in some scenes it looks great, while others it looks like The Expendables. Whatever. It gets the job done.

Did you see Taken? Very similar story here. One man, who is a former badass-mofo, wants to live the quiet life. Someone loved by that man gets mistreated. Man has to make wrongs right. With unflinching force. If you like that formula, you will like Harry. I did. The interrogation scene was so well done, I actually became bloodthirsty myself. But instead of killing someone, I just had some juice. And watched Harry methodically annihilate those British hoodlums. An added bonus is that you get to hear Michael Cain talk for an hour and forty minutes. That's so good, it's even great when somebody else does it. Or two people.

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