Harry Brown

Harry Brown is a 2009 British vigilante action-thriller film directed by Daniel Barber and starring Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jack O'Connell, and Liam Cunningham. The story follows Harry Brown, a widowed Royal Marines veteran who had served in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, living on a London housing estate that is rapidly descending into youth crime. After a violent gang murders his friend, Harry decides to take justice into his own hands. The film also features actor and rapper Plan B, who recorded the film's theme music track "End Credits" with Chase & Status. Harry Brown premiered on 12 September 2009 as a "Special Presentation" at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and was released theatrically in the United Kingdom by Lionsgate UK on 11 November 2009; the film was released in the United States by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Destination Films on 30 April 2010. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised Caine's performance but criticized the excessive violence. Plot Harry Brown is an elderly pensioner who is a decorated Royal Marine, and a veteran of the Northern Ireland conflict. He lives on a London council estate ruled by drug dealers and violent youth gangs, while spending most of his time playing chess with his friend, Len Attwell, at a local pub owned by Sid Rourke. When the hospital phones to tell him that his wife, Kath, is dying, Harry is too late to see her because he is scared to take a shortcut through a pedestrian underpass, which is gang-occupied. His wife is laid to rest next to the grave of their thirteen-year-old daughter, Rachel, who died in 1973. Len confides to Harry that he is being terrorized by young hoodlums, and shows him an old bayonet he now carries to defend himself; with the police unable to help, he plans to confront his harassers himself. The next day, Harry is visited by Detective Inspector Alice Frampton and Detective Sergeant Terry Hicock, who tell him that Len has been murdered. The police arrest Noel Winters, the leader of a drug-dealing gang, along with members Carl, Dean, and Marky, but they are released due to lack of evidence. Harry gets drunk after Len's funeral, but on his way home, Dean attempts to rob him at knife-point. Harry's military training reasserts itself, and he kills Dean with his own knife.