Michael Caine has proved he can play the hard man, and I justify this with his shockingly convincing role in Get Carter. Nearly forty years on, Caine stars as Harry Brown, a 70-something ex-marine who opts to push himself to the edge in a film that’s – if possible – bleaker than Carter or indeed anything else he’s ever appeared in. If you’re expecting a ride with an elderly vigilante, perhaps a British answer to Eastwood’s Gran Torino, or even an updated Death Wish, then this is far darker and disturbing than anything the US film industry has ever offered.
Harry Brown (Caine) lives on a horrifically violent council estate, where his best friend Len (David Bradley) is murdered. What ensues is an uncomfortable yet gripping drama, where Brown emerges as an unlikely survivor in the fog of a nightmarish hell. Unlike Get Carter, which uses the backdrop of early 70s Newcastle as a now iconic setting, Harry Brown appears at times to be deliberately setting-less; background images appear to be out of focus, with much of the scenes set after dark. Where Carter strode through the violent and unwelcome Northern streets, Brown shuffles around a city unrecognisable to even those who have made it their home. It’s an unsettling image of a world with all hope wrung out of it.
Caine is an actor who’s been long in the position that he doesn’t need to prove himself anymore. Where others may have made a meal of Brown’s anger and vengeance, Caine is all suppressed emotion; his performance is brilliantly understated throughout the film. But he’s ever believable; while in one scene we accept that a man with his past can easily handle a gun, we can equally accept the fact that he struggles to operate a mobile phone. It’s mentioned that his character has seen service in Northern Ireland, and he alludes to the fact that former active servicemen don’t speak about the brutalities they might have witnessed. In Harry Brown Caine’s character looks upon the violence and appalling behaviour of the estate setting with tired, unsurprised eyes.
For an actor fast approaching 80, Michael Caine proves he is still an incredibly powerful force. The supporting players in Harry Brown are also superb. Emily Mortimer and Charlie Creed-Miles as the doomed police officers, Liam Cunningham in a small but shockingly memorable role and the ever-outstanding Sean Harris delivers yet another of his frighteningly offbeat performances (he’s previously played Ian Brady on television and starred in the terrifying Creep. I look forward to him in the forthcoming Brighton Rock remake). But it’s Caine’s film, surprising us again, although I’m confident he still has other great roles to deliver yet.
I believe in the things that were done, and there are evidences of many things done on Mars. There are streets and houses, and there are books, I imagine, and big canals and clocks and places for stabling …. Everywhere I look I see things that were used. They were touched and handled for centuries.
Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I’ll say yes. They’re all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we’ll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we’ll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time …. No matter how we touch Mars, we’ll never touch it. And then we’ll get mad at it, and you know what we’ll do? We’ll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves.
Until now my only exposure to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is very hazy memories of the tv series featuring Rock Hudson some 30 years ago. I doubt if this version would stand up to the test of time, although I remember the premise of the astronauts visiting the dead planet Mars being a rather haunting one. What I’ll call the Hudson episode is one of countless memorable scenes in the book, which amounts to a set of extremely effective and mostly chilling short stories set in the period 1999 to 2026 (The Martian Chronicles was written in 1950).
Bradbury explores the impact upon Humanity in attempting, and largely failing, to colonise a seemingly inhabitable but ultimately very alien world. The technicalities of science fiction don’t really interest him; the colonists travel by rocket and he goes no further in explaining the mechanics of their interplanetary movements. And although it’s more than likely that the prospect of Mars being able to sustain human or any type of life was well known at the time, Bradbury is more concerned with the romance and intrigue of space exploration; Mars merely serves as the setting for his wonderful interlinked stories. He’s said himself that The Martian Chronicles is much more of a fantasy novel than science fiction.
The Martian Chronicles begins with accounts of the first few exploratory space missions to Mars, mostly resulting in the disappearance and death of the early settlers at the hands of the distrustful Martians. One rocket crew are locked in an asylum and then later “mercifully” euthanised to rid them of their delusions about being from the planet Earth. Another band of settlers are fooled by the telepathic Martians into thinking that their family and friends are there to greet them. A further mission to the Red Planet (the Hudson episode) finds it deserted; Martians apparently wiped out by Chicken Pox; the episode results in a crew member going insane and killing his fellow travellers.
The apparently deserted world weighed down by the history of the Martians sets the premise for most of the book’s remainder; with settlers driven mad by the ghosts – real or imagined – of the dead fathers of the planet. Abandoned cities, long empty highways and very lonely settlers abandoned by a nuclear war on Earth make a brilliantly written, almost poetic, meditation on Man’s ambition to wander the skies. And how he might be doomed.
Well I liked it. I like him. I like her. Moffat didn’t muff it. What more can I say?
Although I feel I ought to say more about Matt Smith’s debut as The Doctor in The Eleventh Hour and how Steven Moffat, writer of the now legendary Blink, fares as the top man. But after watching The Eleventh Hour last Saturday and following it with celebratory tweets and emails, and now doubtless left behind by hundreds of other blog posts I’m finding it hard to think of anything original to say.
What I liked about it? Matt Smith of course, who still managed to exceed expectations despite the anticipation lasting since Christmas 2008. He’s good, and may turn out to be very good, The Eleventh Hour being perhaps the best Doctor Who “changeover” episode in my memory. (I can only compare as far back as Robot with Tom Baker in 1974 where I recall him getting stuck in to a battle between UNIT and a giant Tin Machine, and later Peter Davison being rather wimpy and fainting a lot through his regeneration).
As long as Smith can curb the wackiness I think there is a real danger and edginess beyond the fringe. He’s followed David Tennant admirably, although maybe the 10th Doc’s soppy eyed staring into space had begun to grate and this is going to be an easier job than anticipated. That 10th incarnation did feel sorry for himself! Karen Gillan is very agreeable as Amy Pond, although she didn’t actually do a lot. Not really. But she carries a version of a WPC uniform with aplomb. And the final scene of her stepping gingerly into the Tardis was very endearing. Perhaps I am finally succumbing to a Doctor’s companion for “the Dads” (although it’s about time. I’m sorry but Rose, Martha and Donna didn’t really do it for me).
What I didn’t like? Only perhaps that Steven Moffat played a little safe. The structure of The Eleventh Hour did remind of The Girl in the Fireplace with the jumping through time premise to visit key stages in a young woman’s life. Whilst the fairytale element of the story was intriguing, introducing The Doctor as Amy’s brief childhood friend, I felt that Moffat shortchanged us somewhat as he’s covered this theme before. With River Song and the Weeping Angels both returning later in the new series, there’s the danger that he might cling to the edge a wee bit ideas wise and not take a running jump and plunge into the infinite possibilities of the Who universe. And call it first episode nerves, but Moffat also revealed the worrying tendency to dip into Russell T. Davies territory. Clips of all previous Doctors (from The Next Doctor), a companion with a gormless boyfriend (echoes of Mickey Smith), some fumbled plot (the coma victims and alien as man-with-barking-dog were very RTD) and the general overblown bombastic storyline (The Doctor arriving on the scene by fire engine) were a little too reminiscent of the over energetic exploits I hoped had been left behind after last Christmas. Moffat only really hinted at his earlier greatness in the Sapphire and Steel like premise of the hidden doorway in a spooky house theme.
And what’s to come over the next 12 weeks? Mark Gatiss pens a Dalek story set during the Blitz that could be interesting, although again this might appear a little too close to the 30s-set Daleks in Manhatten. There’s a vampire story, and Richard Curtis delivers an encounter with Vincent Van Gogh. But it’s all really too early to tell. Like the 11th Doctor shrugging himself into his new body or the Tardis renewing itself somewhat haphazardly, this series might need a little while to bed itself in.
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