Around the time of Michael Caine's older movie The Fourth Protocol, in 1987, a lot of viewers hoped that there would be a last "Harry Palmer" movie. That we would see the old protagonist of the IPCRESS File in a late career adventure. This film could have been that film. It was even called Harry something. Was this to be a witness relocated Palmer coming out of retirement to take on the scum on his estate ? Sadly not. This Harry seems to have been an ex-Marine, not an MI6 agent.
Still, this disappointment aside, Michael Caine was superb in his portrayal of the eponymous character. The rest of the cast though were ill served by weak writing. Several pages of dialogue seemed to be missing for the main protagonists, thus we never got to find out just why the Police on the Estate were so useless, or why the gangs had taken over. In fact a lot of the back story and character detail seems to have been left out. Thin, 2 dimensional characters lacking in real motive inhabited a bleak Thatcheresque version of Clockwork Orange.
A film must surely be there to entertain. When something is this depressing we end up enjoying the violence and the revenge as our only entertainment. Emotions that come uneasily to the viewer. Are we just being set up from the beginning. Just like in Death Wish ? The scum are really scummy, so we won't mind them getting killed at the end ? The lack of credible female characters was also unforgivable. The one sympathetic female cop gets beaten and nearly killed. All the other girls are rape victims, comatose druggies or mute slags. One other, a thug's mother shouts her son's name and that's about it for her lines.
We ended up ultimately with a revenge movie which was no different from the hideous Death Wish in its analysis of violence. It's been a long time since that movie. We could have learnt something new here surely ?
Still, this disappointment aside, Michael Caine was superb in his portrayal of the eponymous character. The rest of the cast though were ill served by weak writing. Several pages of dialogue seemed to be missing for the main protagonists, thus we never got to find out just why the Police on the Estate were so useless, or why the gangs had taken over. In fact a lot of the back story and character detail seems to have been left out. Thin, 2 dimensional characters lacking in real motive inhabited a bleak Thatcheresque version of Clockwork Orange.
A film must surely be there to entertain. When something is this depressing we end up enjoying the violence and the revenge as our only entertainment. Emotions that come uneasily to the viewer. Are we just being set up from the beginning. Just like in Death Wish ? The scum are really scummy, so we won't mind them getting killed at the end ? The lack of credible female characters was also unforgivable. The one sympathetic female cop gets beaten and nearly killed. All the other girls are rape victims, comatose druggies or mute slags. One other, a thug's mother shouts her son's name and that's about it for her lines.
We ended up ultimately with a revenge movie which was no different from the hideous Death Wish in its analysis of violence. It's been a long time since that movie. We could have learnt something new here surely ?