Mini Review: Harry Brown

Highlighting our flawed society is Harry Brown, Michael Caine's latest crime drama proving, first handedly, that the man is one of the finest actors around.

Ex-military man and widower Harry Brown (Caine) lives on an estate most don't go near. He fills his days with drinking and playing chess with his dearly beloved friend Leonard (David Bradley). Once his friend is brutally murdered by the savagely inept 'chav' gangs that roam the streets, Harry seeks revenge.

Without a single doubt, Caine tackles his role of the angered pensioner superbly, displaying, unsurprisingly, great enthusiasm and vulnerability for his character. Hit down with his illness and inability to keep up with the accurately-portrayed youths, he continuously out-smarts the idiocracy of them with his meticulously, military-like plans - aided entirely by the guns supplied (or forcefully removed from) dope-growing/smoking junkies.

Every performance - whether it's from veterans like Caine, the always lovely Mortimer, or the youths portraying the gang members - enhances the realism of the film which, as most have encountered one time or another, is growing increasingly problematic and potentially dangerous. Addressing issues such as gang-related violence and injustice in our criminally-deviating system, the director captures scenes so intense and often hard-to-watch that it's difficult not to praise the entire film. Even going the lengths to calling it one of 2009's best.

A genuinely realistic, and often brutal, view on the lives of todays society.

4/5

Mini Review - The Human Centipede: First Sequence

Boasting the fact that the film is '100% medically accurate', writer/director Tom Six has pieced together a film so glorifyingly disturbing that it's hard not to find yourself intrigued; The Human Centipede: First Sequence.

Two American tourists, Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie, find themselves stranded on a backwoods road in Europe after an ill-fated tire burst. Spotting a light in the distance, they land on the doorstop of crazed scientist Dr. Heiter, unaware of his life-long ambition to create his own personal masterpiece, the human centipede.

Undoubtedly slow-paced, the film firstly follows the two girls as they moan and groan their way through the first couple of scenes, giving a distinct feeling of a camp, 80's slasher. The film, luckily, picks up as soon as they meet psychotic Dr. Heiter (played brilliantly by Dieter Laser). Once captured and fused with another unlucky soul, we're strung through the ringer with these characters as we watch them writhe and crawl around on their knees, leading to the severely depressing end and setting up nicely for the sequel, 'Full Sequence', which will feature a twelve-man centipede.

Grotesque and hard-to-watch, the film's concept is unarguably original - something which doesn't often happen in the life of a horror fanatic. It's not without it's flaws, but they're vastly overpowered by the deeply affecting plot.

3.5/5