Hardcore Henry

It’s awesome being an action hero, especially after looking through the eyes of one for the better part of two hours.

Hardcore Henry focuses on one thing and one thing only: how best to maim, murder, blow up, knock down, punch, kick, toss, run over, shoot, and stab everyone onscreen in the most stylish and over-the-top way possible. I’d like to explain the story but as far as I could tell, the script was written by a two year old with nothing more on their mind other than how to set up the next action scene, but I’ll try. Waking up in a lab with no recollection of who he is, where he’s been or where he’s going, our titular hero is greeted by a familiar sight: a woman claiming to be his loving wife. She explains that something terrible has happened to him, that he needed to be “rebuilt”, that he is more machine than man now. She says that he needs to head out and take down the man responsible for Henry’s misfortune with extreme prejudice before they’re able to truly be together again, and since Henry’s voice implant isn’t actually working, he simply nods and gets to it. That’s about all there is to this movie, no joke.

Being a film that seems to take pride in its style over substance approach, Hardcore Henry is essentially a tech demo of sorts for the action crowd. Being shot solely from the first person perspective for 99.9% of its runtime, this movie will divide audience right from the get go. For one, it’s incredibly violent, so much so that I even cringed a few times, not necessarily from being grossed out, but more so from being surprised and caught off guard from how…ahem…hardcore it all was.

Whether it be from a good looking practical effect, to a not so subtle green screen or CG shot, to a clever camera trick, Hardcore Henry always seems to have one more trick up its sleeve in order to more effectively show the nonstop carnage onscreen up close and personal. On more than one occasion this film was able to expertly switch from a simple yet brutal hand-to-hand combat scene, transition into an exhilarating high speed car chase, skip over to a murderous rampaging gun spree, then end with yet another fast paced action scene, this time with Henry armed with only a knife and a broken bottle that he happened to hold on to after smashing some poor schmuck’s skull in. Simply put, the action does not disappoint, and while it may be a bit too much at times, the filmmakers clearly understood where their bread and butter is, and made no qualms about spreading it nice and thick to the point of no return.

All of which is fine and dandy, I don’t expect to be entertained by much else in an action flick other than with the action itself, but man, does everything else stink to high heaven. The acting, outside of a totally committed and genuinely fun handful of performances by Sharlto Copley, is absolutely terrible. I don’t know if this was intended since the film is basically a rip on bad 80’s movies and video games, but I have to believe that the filmmakers were somewhat coherent when they casted this thing. For one, the villain, in everything from look, to acting, to motive, is absolutely terrible. Much like the story, he just seems like a means to an end to push the film into another badass action scene, which again, is fine, but don’t try to force something that isn’t there. Luckily, and only through a handful of gestures and reactions (since he has no actual voice), Henry makes a small bit of an impression adding an odd sense of dark comedy here and there that offsets all of the carnage in a fun way. By no means is this a full fledged character, but it’s nice to know that there is a little bit of humanity still left in him in between all of the upgrades and high tech wiring filling up his body.

Outside of the superb action scenes, the second biggest selling point of the film is the unique first person camera work that puts us right into the eyes of Henry, essentially giving us the illusion that we are directly responsible for the sheer amount of inhumane bloodshed and carnage going on at all times. For most, the way this film is shot will be an immediate turnoff, possibly even a point of nausea for the weak stomach crowd, but I for one had no issues with the shaky cam view whatsoever. I had no problem trying to track everything onscreen and had no difficulty trying to figure out what was happening, in fact, I kind of enjoyed the experience and sort of wished it was shot in 3D if only to be fully immersed in this unique viewing experience. Chalk it up to my many, many years of playing first person shooters, or just the fact that this type of filmmaking astounds me more than annoys, but I can totally understand people not being able to handle it, especially when shit hits the fan every couple of minutes.

Either way, Hardcore Henry tries its best to reinvent the action genre and somewhat succeeds during it’s unique and brutal approach to the subject, while failing in almost every other way. The filmmakers are clearly showing off here and I commend them for trying something different, but at the end of the day, this is really just a bunch of people living out their violent movie fantasies, and I’m totally on board with it.