Hardcore Henry
Don't Go! Cheap, vulgar computer-game rip-off.
First-person shocker shooter.
In Hardcore Henry, for the entire film, you are Henry. It is a first-person shooter movie, filmed entirely from the perspective of the protagonist. His “hardcoreness” is reflected in repeatedly assaulting or murdering people and running a lot. It’s like Peep Show drank a protein shake laced with acid, meth and poorly cut cocaine. Superhands would be ecstatic. Mark, distinctly less so.
Henry wakes up in some kind of airborne hospital lab; confused, disorientated and without his memories or voice. An attractive Jennifer-Lawrence-looking-scientist-lady, Estelle, (Haley “not Jennifer Lawrence” Bennet, The Equalizer) makes the finishing touches to his incomplete body; attaching a bionic arm and leg. She slips a wedding ring on his finger, reminding him that before he was killed and brought back to life, they were married, and that she loves him. Suddenly all hell breaks loose as murderous psychopath bad guy “Akan” (Danila Kovlovsky) appears in a hail of gunfire, showcasing his never-explained telekinetic powers.
Henry wakes up in some kind of airborne hospital lab; confused, disorientated and without his memories or voice. An attractive Jennifer-Lawrence-looking-scientist-lady, Estelle, (Haley “not Jennifer Lawrence” Bennet, The Equalizer) makes the finishing touches to his incomplete body; attaching a bionic arm and leg. She slips a wedding ring on his finger, reminding him that before he was killed and brought back to life, they were married, and that she loves him. Suddenly all hell breaks loose as murderous psychopath bad guy “Akan” (Danila Kovlovsky) appears in a hail of gunfire, showcasing his never-explained telekinetic powers.
Henry escapes, and we find ourselves, as him, plummeting towards earth in an escape pod; crash landing on a motorway in Moscow. What comes next is 90 minutes of Henry and various incarnations of his sole ally, Jimmy (Sharlto Copley, Elysium) killing different men to reach each next “level”, pick up weaponry or, quite literally, gain a p-p-p-power-up for his battery operated heart. The quest is to rescue the scientist from Akan’s clutches, and spoil his plan to create giant army of violent, reincarnated, Henry-like men. It all culminates on top of a high rise building, like a bloodied end to Super Mario. Tim Roth (The Hateful Eight) is also in it for about 10 seconds as Henry's flashback Dad, for some reason. From the stylised opening credits; with close-ups of knives diving through necks and bullets barreling through surrendered skulls, the film is unambiguous about the film’s level of violence. It is a bloody mess of bodies that follows…
…As well as simply being, a bloody mess. I have only once walked out of a movie (Friends With Benefits, sorry JT), and very rarely feel compelled to, but halfway through Hardcore Henry I was deeply envious of the couple at the front who stood up and did just that. Besides a couple of short, well-choreographed action sequences that made interesting use of the first-person camerawork, it was surely one of the most inane and nauseating pieces of cinema I have ever had to endure, leaving me feeling like a comatose turnip whose final pulp of yellowy intelligence had been forcibly squeezed out of my brain through my desolate eyes. Hardcore Henry was my Clockwork Orange moment.
…As well as simply being, a bloody mess. I have only once walked out of a movie (Friends With Benefits, sorry JT), and very rarely feel compelled to, but halfway through Hardcore Henry I was deeply envious of the couple at the front who stood up and did just that. Besides a couple of short, well-choreographed action sequences that made interesting use of the first-person camerawork, it was surely one of the most inane and nauseating pieces of cinema I have ever had to endure, leaving me feeling like a comatose turnip whose final pulp of yellowy intelligence had been forcibly squeezed out of my brain through my desolate eyes. Hardcore Henry was my Clockwork Orange moment.
Seeing everything from Henry’s perspective could have been an exciting adaptation of the usually formulaic action genre. Sadly, with each passing minute, all of that promise is bludgeoned and gouged out of the film by thump after squish of garish, purposeless violence; a non-existent storyline; vapid acting; heinous dialogue; and repetitive, self-congratulatory action set-pieces. Hardcore Henry might offer an unusual visual concept, which may well have been very hard to execute, but the Russian/American film-makers forgot to make an actual movie out of it; you know, with stuff like logical characters and a functioning narrative. Even the spectacle is often spoilt by the pace of the movement, which makes it difficult to keep up with the action. The ultimate result is the lesser equivalent of watching your mate play a poorly made shoot ‘em up on a 90s games console, but on such an overwhelming scale that it is likely to first make your stomach turn before numbing you entirely through incessant noise and jittery motion.
So don’t go. It’s not a film, it’s an unplayable computer game, and a poor one at that. They already nailed this kind of thing in 1997 when Nintendo released Goldeneye. Play that instead. It's miles better.
So don’t go. It’s not a film, it’s an unplayable computer game, and a poor one at that. They already nailed this kind of thing in 1997 when Nintendo released Goldeneye. Play that instead. It's miles better.
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