Everyone Should See Film "Harry Brown"

WATCH "HARRY BROWN" ON THE BIG SCREEN! Look for rep cinemas at this point, I guess. I'm not going to give anything away. And you shouldn't read any reviews first, so as not to wreck it for yourselves. It is beautifully filmed, written and plotted, a throwback to the 1960s and 1970s in look, feel, writing and acting, the last golden age of adventurous cinema. I feel guilty for not recommending it earlier. I meant to, but there were other things going on. It is a very important film. Deceptively so. I can't explain everything, andI wouldn't want to, yet, so as not to wreck it, but I'll say that anyone who hasn't lived in those situations will understand things a lot better after watching it. It elegantly links into almost innumerable themes of post-war, post-industrial traumas, and current modernity, and the interplay of urban planning, history, sociology, politics, media, psychology, technology, and on and on, and not just in the UK, but everywhere, Think of the neuf-trois. Think of here. Think of everywhere. Think of people's behaviour, and their reactions, in multiple ways. It took an old-fashioned film (if early 1970s is old-fashioned) to talk about all these things. It's got some Caine's finest acting, ever. Well, everyone in it is good. I will say that I think most Canadian/American reviewers don't seem to have entirely understood it, nor its import, nor its references and dirty beauty, and largely because it is lost in translation, visually, verbally, societally. Really, y'all would have to do some hefty UK research first. But if ignorant, don't fret, watch it, and try, try to think. It has so much to tell us, to help us reflect on, for those who didn't already know, didn't already get it. It's very rich.

Anyway, a quietly great film, under the guise of a pretty straight ahead front. Very English, that.

Watch it on the big screen, svp.

PS. I just double-checked, and the reviews were indeed ignorant, stupid, and culturally unaware. I hoped the Globe might have had something better, found Groen's, and was disappointed. I quote his conclusion to you, and ask whether Groen realizes that in trying to indict UK culture he actually indicts himself for his own ignorance, lack or perception, and cultural insensitivity. Some reviewer, this:

Then again, that odd mix is familiar too. Indeed, this is a British film that suffers from the same problem as many recent British novels. Ian McEwan’s are an example: His set-piece scenes are superb but the narrative that links them often feels contrived and suspect. There on the page, and here on the screen, the setting and the characterization and the mood seem dead-accurate – it’s the invented bits between that put us off. Maybe there’s something in the English water.