Directed by:
Ilya NayshullerScreenplay:
Ilya NayshullerComposer:
Darya CharushaCast:
Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky, Haley Bennett, Tim Roth, Andrei Dementyev, Darya Charusha, Svetlana Ustinova, Oleg Poddubnyy, Cyrus Arnold, Will Stewart (more)VOD (3)
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In the world's first action-adventure film shot entirely from a first person perspective, a resurrected cyborg named Henry must fight through the streets of Moscow in pursuit of his kidnapped wife. (Showtime)
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Reviews (14)
Harcore Henry is definitely not a film for everyone, no question about it, but it impressed me as a viewer. You could say it's a kind of PC version of Kill Bill, riding a huge action wave of violence, blood, swearing, but also jokes and black humour (mostly provided by Sharlto Copley) from beginning to end. On top of that, everything is seen in first person, which makes the cinema experience all the more intense. As a result, this is a brisk flick that really has balls (unlike the one sleazy cop in the film), isn't afraid to go for it and knows how to sell it properly.
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The pure fire of an avid fan of decadence who pursues the ultimate physical experience with the vigor of a Soviet bulldozer. The creative stubbornness is admirable, but dramaturgically it's pretty bad because, around the 60th minute, it starts to chafe. The frantic ending, however, lifts up the video game concept (literally) into high gear (arcade jumps included) and revs into the red. It’s a progressive genre detour, but unfortunately into a dead end.
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I applaud the idea, admire the technical realization, and criticize the rest. Hardcore Henry is an unimaginably slick and stylish action flick, where some of the opening scenes (especially the free fall in the escape pod) spike the level of the viewer's experience to unprecedented, and you can really say revolutionary, heights, while the optimally set runtime and a lot of black humour, brilliantly provided by the film's best character(s), the outrageously loud Sharlto Copley, are also a hit. But that's where the good stuff ends, as the frantic, B-movie sci-fi story makes no sense, we know absolutely nothing about most of the characters, including the confused Henry, and the vast majority of motives remain unexplained and unfinished. It's simply too much chaos, which can still be excused for the adrenaline-fuelled action scenes, but even pure cinematic entertainment should strive for a more meaningful or at least more atmospheric plot – we can't even worry about Henry, as he's clearly a blend of every invulnerable Hollywood hero in history. And the last criticism is directed to the final long battle, which, instead of a climactic ending, is in my eyes the weakest action set-piece of the film. I did have fun and if I weren't such an opponent of computer games I might not have objected. 65%
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The Russian Tarantino made all men's dreams come true! Hardcore Henry is a wild and thrilling ride that keeps the throttle on for 90 minutes and doesn't let up until the extreme finale. If anyone remembers the excellent church scene from Kingsman, imagine it in a 90 minute package and you get Hardcore Henry. For a mere two million dollars, the director serves up everything guys crave. Lots of cool action that will make you reminisce about the games like “Counter Strike”, “Modern Warfare”, “Half- Life 2”, “Portal” and “Mirrors Edge”, countless dirty jokes that will put a smile on your face. The scene in the brothel will please our eyes, the amazing soundtrack will please our ears and the breathtaking intensity of the violence and countless gore scenes surpass anything I've seen so far (broken spines, ripped out hearts, open chests, shot up heads and brains, and numerous fractures on every part of the body). On top of all that, the story is not at all naive and infantile, on the contrary, it even pulls out a nice ace in the form of a solid twist at the end. It is quite clear that Hardcore Henry is completely out of reality and at times it really feels like you are playing and watching a very rough action game – I don't even blame the few hysterical ladies who left the cinema. If I were at a Barbie movie, I wouldn’t stay in the cinema long either. If you are a high octane alpha male craving proper entertainment and lots of violence like me, you will not be disappointed. Story 7/10, Atmosphere 8/10, Gore 10/10, Visuals 7/10, Action 10/10, Suspense 8/10,Humor 7/10. Entertainment 10/10. 95%.
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Rated R for non-stop bloody brutal violence and mayhem, language throughout, sexual content/nudity, and drug use. ___ It's only been five years since Henry was in theaters, and I already feel the need to retrospectively appreciate it as a throwback to the trend of the GoPro videos which YT was fed up with in their day, before they started being replaced by passive YouTubers in the quiet of their homes, and also the end of the era of big video game titles driven by the promise of technological advancement before that market shifted and games started being developed on social platforms. Here we find the usual climbing over buildings (Assassin's Creed, Mirror's Edge), sniper missions (Call of Duty), escaping from unknown snipers (Half-Life), augmentations (Deus Ex, even with a very blatant rip-off of the soundtrack of Human Revolution at the beginning), obstacles you can shoot through, or papers flying around during the gunfights (FEAR). Add to all that the familiar nightmare of falling somewhere you don't actually fall. Hardcore Henry is actually a fan film in the best way imaginable. It's incoherent (tied together, thankfully, by the FP format), doesn't know when to calm down, and just tosses in one idea after another, whereas it carries the film's tricky and thorough choreography all the way through with tremendous effort just for the sheer spectacle of it. Besides, despite his muteness and anonymity, the protagonist is somehow actually quite likeable, and that's only through the way he occasionally gesticulates with his hand, turns his head, and when he knocks a girl down on the stairs waits to see if she's okay, despite having a bunch of evildoers at his back. The shenanigans he comes up with during the action sequences is actually his way of expressing and building character. But I recognize that this may be because I'm a pretty die-hard gamer who would ideally live his entire alternate life somewhere in a fictional universe, and I can tune into that kind of storytelling much more easily. "Take down the proto-baby!"
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