God bless Sir Michael Caine. Most men his age – he’s a ripe old 75 – would be enjoying their retirement, perhaps relaxing on a yacht, applying suntan lotion to a boatload of ballerinas.
Not Sir Michael. Oh, no. He’s still kicking ass and taking names, movie-style, and to prove it he’s just signed on to star in a British vigilante movie. The name? Harry Brown. Caine’s character’s name? Harry Brown.
The film, which also stars Emily Mortimer, will see Caine play an elderly ex-serviceman who lives in, frankly, a right shithole, filled with nasty and lawless types who want more than a clip round the ear’ole. They want shooting. Or a good slap. And who better to shoot or slap ’em than the man who was Jack Carter? The man who was Harry Palmer? The man who was Nigel Powers?
That’s precisely the point, according to the film’s producer, Kris Thykier, who will oversee the film for Marv Films, along with Matthew Vaughn, who calls the film an “exciting and contemporary take on the iconic characters… that originally brought him [Caine] to fame.”
Sounds cool. Now, vigilante movies do have a tendency to rub some people up the wrong way, but since Get Carter was essentially a vigilante movie, we’re more than happy to see Sir Michael dishing out a good hiding to thugs again, with the plot calling for him to take action after his best friend is murdered.
And if you have fears that he’s a bit too old for this type of thing and might spend the movie doddering around like Charlie Bronson in Death Wish V: The Face Of Death, we’re sure those fears will prove unfounded.
Let’s just hope that our other fear proves unfounded and that this turns out better than the last British vigilante movie – Nick Love’s Outlaw.
The Lionsgate movie, which is written by Gary Young, goes before the cameras in November, with Daniel Barber at the helm.