Harry Brown
Samuel Goldwyn Films | Release Date: April 30, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
13
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireMark Dinning
Essential stuff, even by the big man's considerable standards. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Sitting in the theater, you're liable to buy all this simply for the pleasure of watching Caine work. Like Eastwood and other actors of his vintage, Caine brings to the project not only his own formidable skills but more than half a century of movie history. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineWade Major
Not to be overlooked are the film's wealth of fine supporting performances and technical contributions-the always wonderful Emily Mortimer, Martin Ruhe's extraordinary cinematography and Kave Quinn's incisive production design each playing a part in what must be considered one of the very best films of the first half of 2010. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This movie plays better than perhaps it should. Directed as a debut by Daniel Barber, it places story and character above manufactured "thrills" and works better. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
This portrait of the soldier as an old man is deeply moving. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Unlike "Dirty Harry," this film doesn't particularly have an overt political ax to grind. But it thankfully strips away the veneer of glamour that Guy Ritchie and his imitators have applied to British crime films over the last decade or so. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Harry Brown has more to say, about aging, about old-school courtesy in collision with blind stupid violence, and about how sometimes pensioners on a fixed income get stuck in neighborhoods that turn dangerous. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
My expectation is that Harry Brown will find its strongest adherents among those who remember Caine in The Ipcress File and Get Carter and are fascinated to explore his take on how that sort of character might have aged. Read full review
75
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
Those of us who love Michael Caine have to recognize that his capacity for coldness is part of what makes him great. And in that respect, what he does in Harry Brown is something of a bookend to his extraordinary, and extraordinarily chilly, turn in Mike Hodges' cold-blooded 1971 Get Carter. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
A mean and exceedingly well-made little B-picture, but the questions it raises are far too complex to answer with a simple gunshot. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
Caine is magnificent. This is not some laughable Stallone-boxing-at-60 exercise in vanity. He's an old man playing an old man, but one who lived through experiences that both scarred him for life and prepared him for his final test. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin Wilson
A film that's as much a character study as it is a crime drama. At the heart of it is Caine's hauntingly memorable performance. Read full review
70
VarietyJoe Leydon
Bleak, gripping, sporadically exciting drama. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Caine makes a grave, soulful vigilante avenger, and first-time director Daniel Barber gives the film a dank, streaky, genuinely unnerving palette. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
It's a strong directing debut for Barber, who uses the poignant power of Harry's experience to take a universal cut at decaying communities and the poverty of soul as well as pocket. Read full review
70
NPRJeannette Catsoulis
A tight, anxious little film that plays like a call to arms for senior citizens, Harry Brown could be "Gran Torino" reimagined as a subdued episode of "Prime Suspect." Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Barber uses various stylistic devices - hand-held cameras, cellphone cameras, etc. - that make a somewhat slow story seem to move at a brisker pace. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Gritty and compelling up to a point, but cheaply exploitive as well. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid Fear
We like our secondhand vengeance as sleazy and bloody as the next grindhouse fiend, but even an intentional throwback shouldn’t feel content to coast on so much déjà vu. Read full review
60
TimeMary Pols
Tawdry but compelling. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Here's a rough-and-tumble British drama that, despite a strong spine, ought to be more like its title character: quiet and deadly -- and less showy. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Part punk-drab British art-house portrait of underclass despair, part bloody vigilante pic, Harry Brown is shakily held together by industrial-strength sound design and the expertly employed theatrics of Michael Caine in the title role. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Alas, the drama surrounding him (Caine) rarely rouses anything but yawns. Read full review
50
ObserverRex Reed
Michael Caine is such a consummate actor that it's a major cause of concern to see him in Harry Brown, another hateful vigilante flick the wags in England have already labeled Dirty Harry Brown for reasons that are immediately obvious. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
There's a deceptive gravitas to the British vigilante thriller Harry Brown that some are bound to mistake for class--or even truth--in the way it grapples with one man's violent stand against societal decay. Much of that is owed to Michael Caine, an actor of such rare dignity and stature that audiences are naturally willing to follow him anywhere, including into the heart of truly risible material. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
In "Gran Torino," Eastwood took on the moral issues that screenwriter Gary Young and first-time director Daniel Barber studiously avoid. It's the difference between riveting and repellent. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The stark direction, the brittle performances, the impoverished setting, the scatological dialogue, everything about the film screams out "Gritty social realism." Everything, that is, except the plot, which shouts "Eye-rolling melodrama." Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
After a long run of baroquely plotted crime dramas like "Layer Cake'' and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,'' it's a little depressing to come across a vigilante drama whose sole twist is its protagonist's advanced age. Read full review
40
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Thoroughly derivative, and it doesn't illuminate youth crime -- it exploits it. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Mr. Caine is one of the few reasons to sit through Harry Brown, an exercise in art-house exploitation directed by Daniel Barber and tarted up with self-importance and a generally striking visual design. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Exploitative and crass, the film paints an ugly portrait of youth gone wild and the ineffectuality of the police to curb the menace. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The tragedy is that the performance comes to nothing. Nearly everything else in the film is vile. Read full review
38
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Michael Caine delivers a stunning performance in Harry Brown, a rancid little revenge fantasy that probably doesn't deserve him. Read full review
20
Village VoiceElla Taylor
Director Daniel Barber's lame handwringing about the root causes of youthful alienation forms a thin veneer over the real purpose of this self-important piece of rubbish--to hold us hostage to the director's bottomless appetite for spurious depravity. Read full review
16
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Caine acts dignified throughout, but there's no way to dignify dreck. Read full review
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