michael caine plays a geriatric ex-marine who gets marginalized by the corrupt youth in his ghetto neighbourhood and takes up arms against them. stepping around the enormous elephant in the room that is michael caine's legacy, the movie delivers a solid story that seems predictable at first then tucks you in with a sensible final twist that makes all right. the plot is simple and linear, and it delivers with all it's potential
Caught this last night having seen a few TV ads for it. In summary, I'm pretty pleased with what I saw.
I have to say, I agree with thujone in that it's an entirely linear script in the vein of other 'old-man-goes-psycho' flicks such as Death Wish or (and I cringe at this obvious comparison) Clint Eastwood's recent crap-fest, Gran Torino. There really are no surprises in the screenplay. None at all. I even guessed what the final scene would entail within 10 minutes of watching. It's simply the story of an older generation of men who perhaps once lived a life of battlefield heroism - or otherwise quiet dignity - that have been witness (and victim) to a gradual decay of urban society and values.
Caine plays his role so, so well. The scenes in which his grief are overtly displayed are quite believable with the anguish etched on his face, while the anger smolders beneath the surface of his eyes as he contemplates his loneliness and alienation. That said, he is let down with some heavy-handed scripting in places:
The scene where he reluctantly discusses his military history with his soon-to-be-murdered friend, Len, suffers from this obvious script hook. His statement went something along the lines of having to "lock that part of me away" when he married his now-deceased wife. It was an obvious prelude to what would explode in the latter scenes.
I also thought the use of a naive, disbelieving and obviously pompous Police Superintendent was a poor script device that otherwise detracted from what I felt were some excellent scenes concerning the Police interviews of suspects. The youths and other criminal elements are also well-casted, frequently avoiding an overly-clichéd delivery in favour of simply being the offensive, repulsive, odious and small-minded idiots that are so prevalent in the most deprived of London's sink estates.
Furthermore, the texture of the film accurately captures the look and feel of the worst of the post-war, monolithic British housing estates - the decay, the lack of cohesion, mindless violence and youths running rife. It does so with cinematic style in places, but with a more grounded TV drama approach that works well.
Anyway, this is perhaps a distraction from the far simpler pleasures that this film provides - that of seeing an old man being systematically broken down by the crappy society around him, and the viewer anticipation of seeing the pensioner phoenix arise from the ashes with guns blazing. It's pure wish-fulfillment for everyone who ever had "a twinge of the Nazis" when they witnessed society's parasites in action. My only disappointment was that he didn't get his arthritic hands on a Tec-9.
I just watched this last night. True, there were no surprises. But with movies like these, it's not about surprises. It's about revenge and this film delivers in spades. Michael Caine always delivers and it was nice to see him go into kill mode. He was great in this. It was slow-paced for nearly the first hour, but I didn't mind.
The side story with the detectives could have been cut and it would have made for a better film Overall, I'd give this film four stars. If only this thread had a poll.
