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Once in a while, a movie comes along that has genuine social and political content and deserves to be treated as a commentary on contemporary mores as well as a regular cinematic experience.
And while a vigilante flick starring the 76-year-old Sir Michael Caine may seem an unlikely candidate for such treatment - all right, very unlikely - Harry Brown (which receives its premiere in Leicester Square tomorrow and is released on Wednesday) most definitely falls into this category.
The film, compellingly directed by Daniel Barber, is the story of an elderly ex-Marine and widower living on a bleak south London estate whose best friend is slaughtered by drug-soaked hoodies.
Dismayed by the response of the police, Caine's Harry seeks his own bloody form of justice, embarking on a journey into the hellish world of teenage crime that is both shockingly violent and morally unsparing.
This is not the cartoonish shoot-'em-up of the modern gangster flick: the violence of Harry Brown owes more to Sam Peckinpah than Quentin Tarantino, and may well put off the polenta-eating, Guardian-reading classes who, one suspects, will object to the bloodshed on principle. But this would be a mistake.
The violence is not there to raise a cheer in multiplexes but as a terrible warning. It is the nerve-shattering means by which the film portrays a society that is utterly disfigured, in which generations turn against one another, and a veteran soldier is so crazed with thwarted grief that he is ready to point his service revolver at teenagers.
When I asked Sir Michael at a recent event held in his honour what it was like to make such a gruelling film, he said that the experience had turned him into an "evangelist" for the young people left behind on such estates.
He grew up a few hundred yards away from the area in Elephant and Castle where Harry Brown is set, and found himself trusted by the local kids who respected his origins.
"They need education," he reflected, "which is a lot cheaper than building more prisons." Well, quite.
This is a film that every Londoner should see, for it confronts the viewer with the dark side of the city and the brutal reality of life on its forgotten estates, especially south of the river.
And many will not like what they see: this is a thousand light years from the shiny London that we are presenting to the world as hosts of the 2012 Olympics, the hip city of Time Out, the 02 Centre, the newest restaurants and West End girls shopping on Bond Street.
Harry Brown is an uncomfortable reminder that Cobbett's Great Wen still exists, 10 minutes away from Soho's fashionable clubs.
It is also a movie of its time because it addresses a question that has climbed to the very top of the political agenda, after many false starts. Gordon Brown has often scorned David Cameron's preoccupation with the "Broken Society": the neighbourhoods which are torn to pieces by joblessness, drugs, knife and gun crime, debt, and the absence of responsible father figures.
The Prime Minister's usual objection is that the Tory Party's work in this area - pioneered by Iain Duncan Smith - is too pessimistic and detracts from the resilient greatness of this country.
But it was noticeable that even he devoted a big section of his Labour conference speech this year to "intervening earlier to stop anti-social behaviour, slash welfare dependency and cut crime whenever and wherever there is anti-social behaviour, we will be there to fight it."
A change of heart by the PM? Probably not. What Gordon's sudden interest in the pathologies of Broken Britain tells you is that, with only a few months to go before the general election, his focus groups are boiling with fury about social decay and the apparent inability of those who spend out taxes to do anything about it.
And while there has not yet been a wave of OAP vigilantism in this country, it says a lot that the idea of a man in his seventies going on the rampage with a gun is no longer intrinsically absurd. Indeed, in Sir Michael's capable hands, it is horribly, tragically plausible.
Those who say Cameron is a risk-averse pragmatist should read what he has actually said on the subject of social breakdown: for he has repeatedly pledged nothing less than the systematic repair of the Broken Society, a series of reforms ranging from tougher welfare policies, a transformed education system, a presumption that all convicted of a knife crime will go to jail, support for those who marry, and a range of measures to deal with addiction.
"There is a danger of becoming quite literally a de-moralised society, where nobody will tell the truth anymore about what is good and bad, right and wrong," he said in a speech in July 2008.
"And why would a different government be any different? Not least because we understand that the causes of our broken society lie not just in government policies but in our national culture."
These are big, bold claims - as admirable in their moral basis as they are fraught with political risk: the peril of expectations raised and then dashed. Of course, the greatest risk would be to do nothing.
And if you need persuading of that, or of the scale of the task facing Prime Minister Cameron - well, make time to see Harry Brown.
Reader views (9)
So it takes a film, which no matter how realistic is still a work of fiction, to make you realise that London isn't all frappucinos on the South Bank and strolls through Regents Park with Keira Knightly on one arm and Kate Winslet on the other? Where have you been?
'This is a film that every Londoner should see, for it confronts the viewer with the dark side of the city and the brutal reality of life on its forgotten estates, especially south of the river.'
Why not grow a pair and go to these parts of town and talk to the people who live there rather than hiding in the safety of a thinly veiled party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party, looking down on the great unwashed telling them what they need because you saw a film and it didn't look very nice and there wasn't any where to get a decent coffee, it was at least a 10 minute walk to the nearest tube station and there were some kids outside a chippy that looked a bit threatening?
I know you're trying to pin the blame for the state of whatever Broken Britain is on Labour but London didn't suddenly sprout a load of council estates full of junkies, murderers and rapists on 1st May 1997. Also, enforcing the negative stereotype of council estates as a way of scoring cheap political points as we get ever nearer to a general election benefits absolutely nobody, least of all those who live on them.
- James, London, UK
To herald Harry Brown as a film that every Londoner should see is a watershed moment for the way the UK likes to portray itself. When I was younger, I was told about what’s good and bad, right and wrong and perhaps more importantly, how to deal with injustice and how not to turn a blind eye to it. Only last week, the film One Day (directed by Penny Woolcock) was banned from cinema screens in its’ home city of Nottingham for fear of a violent backlash and reprisals, such was the brutal, yet unsparing depiction of Nottingham’s gang culture. Where’s the justice in that?
Earlier this year, I had the honour of co-producing the debut film of a largely unknown award-winning filmmaker based in Stratford - the home of the 2012 Olympics - the shiny side of London. Stick with Me (directed by Bernard Kordieh) is an uncompromising tale about brotherhood, confronting the viewer with the brutal reality of life in London’s inner cities – very much in the mould of Harry Brown. Judging by the hype surrounding Harry Brown and the record attendance who saw Stick with Me make its' premiere at the British Urban Film Festival last month, what is clear is that UK urban cinema is not only in rude health, but that it has a far more prominent role to play in public life – education, education, education, to quote from Tony Blair (remember him?)
Harry Brown is very much a film which does exactly what it says on the tin. I wonder what David Cameron would've made of the film Notting Hill?
- Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, Stratford, East London
I never understood Cameron's line about "national culture". Broken Britain has been foisted upon us by a corruption of our national culture, not as some warped part of it. Forget those that hark back to Victorian times and talk about Dickensian crime and poverty - the truth is that for most of the 20th Century the UK was largely a peaceful, low-crime society and it most certainly is not now. Those stating otherwise are simply denying the facts for ideological reasons. So what changed? The answer lies in Cameron's action points:
a)Tougher welfare policies: under Labour governments we have a far-too generous system that means work is a choice not a necessity,
b)A transformed education system: under Labour we destroyed the grammar school system that gave the working class a ladder to the middle classes and those without the academic skills a trade for life,
c)A presumption that all convicted of a knife crime will go to jail: under Labour we have been far too soft on crime, no matter what their nonsense clichés in 1997,
d)Support for those who marry: the liberal elite's permissive society has destroyed marriage as a concept with no regard to the socio/economic consequences,
e)Help on additcion: Again the liberal elite's permissive society has made drugs almost the norm. Now each socio-class has its drug - no matter what the harm.
Make no mistake: the left are to blame for this mess, and they know it (blaming Thatcher is a 100% lie).
- Digger, London
So a two bob overrated actor makes a film that proves poshboy right.Of course there are lots of problem areas.But to imply the whole country is "broken" is typical Tory tosh.
- Colin, barking essex
darius -what rubbish
browns criticism of IDS is to point out that it is similar to Hesetines observation that there was social poblems in liverpool in the 80's and then do nothing about it
this sort of criticism of the Government reminds me of labour blaming the doubling of crime in the 80's on the rise in unemployment,Yet there were benefits around, this sort of criticism does nothing to adress the fact that its investment that is needed
- John, london
How sad and perverse that Michael Caine should become an "evangelist" for the young people left behind on estates, whilst making a film in which the solution to those young people's problems is to exterminate them all. What message are the filmgoers going to take home from this film - to help young people with their problems or that THEY are the problem?
- Nolan, Londonist
Michael Caine is spot on about the need for better education after all one only has to see the number of comments on this paper about "Unelected Prime minister" to see how British Constitution is no longer taught like it was when I went to Sir Hugh Myddleton Secondary Modern School!
I fully relate to Sir Michael Caine having grown up in the back streets of Islington before the Chelseaites moved in and as Bob Hoskins said in The Long Good Friday "Their used to be decent people round here..."
As for Society well it was Thatcher who said "Their is no suuch thing as society." And it was her government that destroyed the manufacturing base which supported working class children. Instead their parents were thrown on the dole and the products of these children can be seen in this film in their children!!!
As for education it should be remembered that as Minister for Education as well as taking away milk "snattcher thatcher" she also closed down the most Grammer Schools of any government.
My generation of the 60's benefited from a degree of social mobility that no longer exists when you virtually need a honours degree in Bio-Science just to be a dustman!
Which is something these children will never get because those at the top have lost touch with reality.
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex (formerly Islangton, London)
I thought we'd already put the notion of "Broken Britain" to bed. The name bizarrely suggests that in some mythical past Britain was whole and perfect, which anyone with any grasp of history would realise was totally false.
There have always been and always will be problems, they just shift over time.
I also liked this choice sentence: "And many will not like what they see: this is a thousand light years from the shiny London that we are presenting to the world as hosts of the 2012 Olympics, the hip city of Time Out, the 02 Centre, the newest restaurants and West End girls shopping on Bond Street."
Do you watch the news? We are repeatedly told about the problems of knife crime and violence in the capital.
- Rensenbrink, London
Their used to be a saying "Children should be seen and not heard", an updated PC/Nu Labour version might read
"Young Adults and their (single) mothers are politically and commercialy targetable and MUST have rights but with no responsibilities, therefore it is decreed that they WILL be seen and MUST be heard".
And this is the problem, rights MUST come with social responsibilities, what you decide to have you must take responsibility for, not expect some other to pay for it all, either fiscally or socially.
Breaking this connection of responsible rights is the centre of most of todays social ills.
And vigilantism is just one of the scabs that cover and attemt to heal those wounds, made acceptable by "cool" celebrity personas or otherwise!
- Darius, London UK
