There’s no burying the lead: I think Hardcore Henry is one of the most unwatchable movies I’ve ever seen. It is both in a physical sense and in an artistic sense. If you’ve seen the advertisements then you know that Hardcore Henry is essentially a filmic version of a first-person shooter game.
Henry (I’m sure there was a body actor, but I hate this movie so much I’m not looking him up) is a cyborg man whose wife (Hayley Bennett) has been kidnapped by a Russian albino (Danila Kozlovsky) with telekinetic powers; he later teams up with a scientist (Sharlto Copley) who helps him kill these people and countless innocents along the way.
I want to clear the air about something right away: I don’t have a problem with first-person shooter games. I have played Call of Duty on more than one occasion and I must say that I find it fun. I’m not any good at it, but it’s not a bad way to kill 90 minutes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the producers and writer/director (Ilya Naishuller – remember this name and any time you see a film with his credit on it, run for the hills) have created a movie that is all the fun of watching someone else play a videogame.
Henry mows people down with reckless abandon and you are forced to watch in all the gory details, but without any of the choice of who gets shot, where, when or why. Essentially, Naishuller has written a script for a videogame, but the premise was so thin that he couldn’t fill over 90 minutes – and even that’s being generous.
One of the interesting things about Hardcore Henry is that by taking the matter of choice away from the audience, it feels only like a vehicle to watch a slaughter. I don’t see very many people enjoying this movie unless that is the only thing that they crave in life. I don’t care to know these people.
I hated Hardcore Henry for the moment that it started. I had assumed that at some point my eyes would adjust to the photographic approach to the film. Not only is the movie first-person, but it attempts to mimic human eyesight by filming it with a fisheye lens.
What that means is that the camera is not only constantly moving, but that the image has a constant curvature. I had to get up during the movie and take a five minute break just to give my eyes and head a rest.
This script isn’t much of a script. It’s a premise and a thin one at that. We don’t care about Henry. I suppose we’re supposed to because, well, it’s supposed to be us. But, it’s not us. If it were us, we would be able to make a decision on what to do. It’s like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book where no choices are ever offered.
Because the protagonist is never given any character traits – I assume that this is to give us the ability to place ourselves in his shoes – he is never compelling. I frankly never cared if Henry took a bullet to the head, chest, stomach or anywhere else.
The film is also incredibly inconsistent with its rules. The opening prologue is shot in nearly one-take in real time. Throughout multiple intervals in the picture, there are jump cuts as well as long fade outs that help move the camera along when it would’ve been too troubling to simply have it physically move.
Sound issues also abound late in the picture. For most of the first two acts, all of the sound is synchronous – meaning that the sounds and songs are attributed to everything on screen. If there is a song playing, that means there is a visibly on screen. But, in the last action set piece the film decides to take a flight of fancy and implement Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”.
This film doesn’t care enough to keep to its gimmick and neither do I. Don’t see Hardcore Henry. Avoid it like you might avoid a relative you hate seeing or a cold or getting hit by a car. It’s not worth your time.
Brian Laughran
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