Harry Brown - DVD

Film: Harry Brown (Michael Caine) lives a reclusive life in a grey housing estate in London. During the day, he spends most of his time at his wife's bedside and playing chess at the pub with his best friend Leonard (David Bradley, best known as Argus Finch in the "Harry Potter" films). But as soon as night falls, the pensioner prefers to be at home, the streets then dominated by violent youth gangs who terrorize the entire neighborhood. When his wife dies, Leonard confesses to his grieving friend that he keeps being harassed by the youths and so has armed himself.

The next day, policewoman Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) is at Harry's door and opens up to him that Leonard has been beaten to death. There is no evidence to point to the identity of the perpetrators - but Harry Brown knows exactly who is to blame for his friend's death. And he realizes he can't let this cowardly act go unpunished...

"Harry Brown" is a dirty, depressing, incredibly well-acted revenge thriller, carried especially by Michael Caine's superb performance. The way Caine mutates from frightened pensioner to ice-cold avenger is simply fascinating and, above all, believably realized. The fact that Caine is able to embed this first-class performance in a scenario that seems almost too authentic, and which deals with the difficult and unpleasant subject of juvenile delinquency in a relentless manner, increases the impact of his portrayal immensely.

However, the performance of Ben Drew, who plays the leader of the youth gang, must also be acknowledged here. Drew, who is currently enjoying a stellar music career under the name "Plan B", gives the ice-cold teen, who seems capable of any cruelty without any perspective, with a believability that gives you real goosebumps. He's not a pleasure to watch - and in this context, that can only be interpreted as a compliment.

In a few places where the story is a bit bumpily directed, it becomes clear that "Harry Brown" is a directorial debut. However, it is one that, on balance, can only be described as impressive and exceedingly successful. A thriller that shakes you up, shocks you and has a long lasting effect. And exactly therefore also an absolutely worth seeing DVD recommendation!

Picture + Sound: The gloomy-gray atmosphere of the film is also felt in the technical implementation of the DVD. The fact that the whole thing from a purely technical point of view can not really be called particularly good, but atmospheric fully convinced, makes an evaluation of image and sound somewhat difficult. While the sound remains rather quiet over long stretches and only rarely shows real dynamics, the picture appears dull, gray and somewhat washed out. For the film, this is just fine, but for image aesthetes, it's probably rather disappointing. Overall, there's a compromising "Good"!

Extras: Very much worth listening to is the audio commentary, recorded by director Daniel Barber along with producer Kris Thykier and lead actor Sir Michael Caine. While Barber talks a lot about his experience making his first feature film, Caine reveals that he has no idea how to download the soundtrack from the internet, that he was good friends with Emily Mortimer's parents, or what interesting documentary he saw a few days ago. And he demonstrates his wonderful sense of humor, for example, when he comments on a particularly poignant, silent scene by saying that the film has plenty of laughs to offer. An entertaining, but also interesting audio commentary.

Furthermore, the DVD has some rather promotional interviews, a few not uninteresting cut scenes, a look behind the scenes, as well as the trailer and more DVD tips to offer. Good!

Conclusion: "Harry Brown" is once again a very good proof that really good movies unfortunately more and more often do not make it to the cinema, but are marketed directly on DVD. Sure, the film wouldn't have drawn large crowds to the theaters anyway, but given the mass of bad films that make it to theaters despite predetermined lack of success, it's a shame that a film like "Harry Brown" ends up as a DVD premiere. Technically, the disc matches the atmosphere of the film, but the bonus material is a bit sparse. Overall: absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp