Harry Brown



In this 2009 film, Michael Caine stars as Harry Brown, a widowed pensioner and ex-Royal Marine who lives on a Council Estate terrorised by feral teens. After an old friend confronts a bunch of them and is killed, he decides that enough is enough and is off to go chav-hunting. In essence, he's the British version of Paul Kersey.

The cast is noted for being very diverse, ranging from professional actors to actual and former gangsters, prostitutes and drug dealers. There is also an aspiring lawyer who also acts. Michael Caine himself lived not far from where the movie was shot and chose to do the project to raise awareness about English sink estates and the lifestyle lived in them.

An interview between Michael Caine and Jon Stewart can be found here.


 * Anti-Hero: Harry is a Type III that borders on Type IV
 * Anti-Villain: Invoked by one of the chavs during an interrogation.
 * Ballistic Discount: Attempted by Harry and averted by the gun dealer who doesn't want him touching the guns until he's paid for them.
 * Badass Grandpa
 * Retired Badass: A former Royal Marine.
 * Big Damn Heroes:
 * Cassandra Truth: Frampton informs the superintendent that Harry is the best suspect for some of the murders. Additionally, earlier in the film, Len flat-out tells Harry that
 * Chekhov's Gun: In the film's climax:
 * In the same scene, the trope is also averted:
 * And of course, let's not forget
 * Crack! Oh, My Back!: Harry's often limited by his own aging body and a bad case of emphysema.
 * Council Estate: the setting is a particularly run-down example; on top of that it's not too far from Michael Caine's real-life childhood neighborhood, where he's immortalized on a mural.
 * Darker and Edgier: Geriatric widower with a distinguished military record lives in a bad part of town that used to be a good part of town. When he's had enough of the local teenagers' shenanigans, he shows them what a tough guy really looks like. Sounds like Gran Torino right? No.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Alfred Pennyworth walks around kicking the crap out of, among others, Cook
 * All because they killed his friend, Filch. The neighborhood he lives in does make his nastiness towards the Hogwarts students suddenly make sense.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Displayed by the chavs Harry encounters in the underpass  Of course, they are shooting Gangsta Style.
 * Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Harry interrogates Marky by whipping him.
 * Laser-Guided Karma: The chavs on the motorbike in the prologue.
 * Let's Get Dangerous: when he decides he's had enough.
 * Lower Class Lout: The villains are all textbook examples, albeit better armed than usual.
 * Morality Chain: Harry's comatose wife.
 * One-Scene Wonder: Sean Harris is onscreen for ten minutes max. He doesn't just steal those ten minutes, he points a gun at the clock and demands those minutes be put in a bag before speeding off in an unmarked car.
 * Pointy-Haired Boss: The superintendent comes off as a very unreasonable boss, barely considering Frampton's theories and in the end getting a medal for the mediocre Operation Blue Jay.
 * Police Are Useless: Played with. The police in this movie are far from inactive, but their effectiveness is questionable. Some cops are shown as more useless than others.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: The cops refuse to listen to Frampton because they are as frustrated at the system's failings as Harry is, and are disinclined to step in to stop his Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Detective Sergeant Hicock as much as says so towards the end.
 * Revenge Thriller: Harry is the hero only because the people he's up against are far, far worse.
 * Trauma Conga Line: To be fair, he goes through a lot of shit and tries to let the authorities deal with it before taking matters into his own hands.
 * Reckless Gun Usage: Most of the thugs are ridiculously negligent with their firearms - the drug dealer who Harry goes to buy weapons from takes the cake, though.
 * Not terribly surprising when you consider just how strung out and generally messed up he is.
 * This also extends to both Noel and Harry concealing firearms in their waistbands and
 * The Reveal: The identity of the Big Bad,.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge
 * The Stoic: Police Superintendent Childs. When the riot starts, the chavs are throwing bottles and rocks at the police armored up in riot gear. Childs casually observes the whole thing, with his helmet in his hand. As projectiles thrown by the chavs land all around him, he casually turns around and walks back to his car, not even bothering to don his helmet until the very end of the scene.
 * Teens Are Monsters: Once again, chavs.
 * Understatement: On promotional stops, Michael Caine described Harry as "being upset" by his friend's death.
 * Vigilante Man