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Hardcore Henry
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Entertainment In Video Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (11th August 2016). |
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The Film
 “Hardcore Henry” (2016) “Henry” wakes up in a laboratory with complete memory loss, a missing leg, missing arm, and unable to speak. The scientist taking care of him is Estelle (played by Haley Bennett) who says she is his wife and that she and her team are experimenting with robotics to repair him. Things become extremely complicated when the lab gets ambushed by the villainous Akan (played by Danila Kozlovsky) who is looking for the human/robot hybrid tech that Estelle’s team has been working on, and he is willing to kill to have it in his hands. During the ambush and chase out, Estelle gets kidnapped by Akan’s men and it’s up to Henry to rescue her. The only help he gets is from the mysterious Jimmy (played by Sharlto Copley) who seems to know quite a lot about Henry, and who is willing to die to help him. What sets “Hardcore Henry” apart from other action films is that it is entirely shot through the point of view of the main character, almost entirely through GoPro cameras. The film is obviously shaky, disorienting, and messy looking, but all completely intentional to the nature of the production. A special GoPro mounted helmet designed by Sergey Valyaev and Vsevolod Kaptur was used, which increased stability and was able to capture footage better for the enormous amount of action scenes. The film is highly influenced by first person shooter video games such as the “Call of Duty”, “Battlefield”, “GoldenEye”, and RPG elements with talking to people, gathering items, powering up, map checking, and unfolding the mysteries of the character. Not just in video game style, but the film is highly influenced by films such as “RoboCop” with the POV shots and the half human/half machine main character, “The Bourne Identity” with a character with memory loss that has superior strength, “Dark City” as well with multiple elements of the main character with memory loss and psychokinesis. Nothing is especially new to the storytelling, as the production is entirely about the visuals more than anything else. There are some incredibly impressive visuals in the film with the action sequences. The convoy chase scene, the hunt for Dimitri, the ambush at Jimmy’s place, are just a few of the highlights with the choreography of action sequences in the first person view. Director Ilya Naishuller previously directed the music video for “Bad Motherfucker” for his band Biting Elbows. It essentially was a precursor to “Hardcore Henry” with its use of GoPro cameras to capture a first person shooter type short. With a campaign with partial funding via IndieGoGo and having support by internationally renowned fellow Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambatov, the film received a boost in casting with Sharlto Copleyas Jimmy - in a role that shows his chops as he plays Jimmy in multiple incarnations - from a smelly hobo, a soldier, a scientist, a druggy and more. And to add to that, there is the very unusual musical scene which stands out in a “WTF?” moment. Tim Roth gets a big credit, but his role is pretty much a cameo in flashbacks. Danila Kozlovsky playing against his typecast as Akan is like a Bond villain crossed with a Dragon Ball villain, and his Russian accent only adds to the characterization and certainly hits the cartoony vibe. Haley Bennett as Estelle doesn’t get too much screentime presence as she has the role of the damsel in distress (or is she?). But does “Hardcore Henry” work as a film? As a cartoony action film, yes it does. As a story, it is a bit weak and predictable. The biggest problems are that many questions are still unanswered. How did Akan develop psychokinetic powers? How does he have the finances and resources for his operations? How was Jimmy able to build so much in his crippled condition? Who really was Henry? But as the main character does not speak and that the audience is in the character’s eyes the entire time, it really is like a video game like “The Legend of Zelda” or “Dragon Quest” so it essentially becomes “you”. So substance is quite thin on the film but it is a blast of fun. So will this be a new trend of filmmaking? GoPro filmmaking, Drone filmmaking, VR filmmaking, what’s the next big trend going to be? “Hardcore Henry” was given a large 3000 theater plus opening in America, but did not connect with audiences. A paltry $5 million opening followed by a steep dropoff with only 500 theaters playing it on the third weekend. US gross topped at less than $10 million and internationally totaled at less than $15 million. Considering the microbudget of $3 million, the total gross probably didn’t cover the marketing budget and so the film is considered a flop. The title didn’t help much either - ”Hardcore Henry” the POV movie - sounds more like a porn title than an action movie. The original production title of “Hardcore” was a better choice, but the 1980 film directed by Paul Schrader already used the title. Maybe people are not interested or just not ready for films like this… Note this is a region B Blu-ray which can only be played back on region B or region free players
Video
Entertainment in Video presents the film in 1080p in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in the AVC MPEG-4 codec. As almost all the film was shot on GoPro cameras it has its issues of clarity, depth, color reproduction, and sharpness. To add to that, there’s macroblocking, aliasing, and other errors expected plus intentional glitches and video dropouts with the main character facing damage. In a standard feature film these would be unacceptable transfer errors but in this case it was both intentional and part of the original footage. In comparison the scenes of the flashbacks are filmed on standard HD cameras and look pin sharp and beautiful. The film’s runtime is 96:24.
Audio
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 The soundtrack is aggressive with explosions, gunfights, music, and sound effects using the full 5.1 spectrum. The music choices are both great and questionable - the opening track by The Stranglers is an excellent choice. The few selections by the director’s band Biting Elbows are an obvious choice. The Queen song “Don’t Stop Me Now” during the brawl sequence - “Shaun of the Dead” has immortalized the song as a hilarious scene and it’s hard to think of anything else with that song, so it just doesn’t fit here. The film had a Dolby Atmos mix created for theaters but sadly that is not included. Regardless, it’s hard to fault it. Although labeled “English” there are a few portions that are in Russian as the story takes place in Russia. There are optional English HoH subtitles and burned-in English subtitles for the Russian portions. The burned-in subtitles are an easy to read white font - although there is one scene in which multiple lines of subtitles are overlayed on top of each other for a gag effect. There are also one or two English lines that have the burned-in subtitles due to it sounding a bit difficult to understand. As for the English HoH subtitles that caption the English dialogue and effects, did someone not proofread this? There are multiple passages with slightly differing wording and missing words. “What happened to his head” became “What happened to your head”. “Fuck!” was subtitled as “Shit!”. A character said “Charlie Fucking Chaplin!” but the subtitles read “Charlie Chaplin!” There were even a few grammar errors due to the missing words. The inaccuracy is quite often.
Extras
Audio commentary with director Ilya Naishuller and actor Sharlto Copley A very chatty and informative commentary by the director and star, they touch on technical aspects of the production, the difficulties they went through, how they almost killed two stunt people, and point out the cameo appearances. It’s an excellent laid back yet serious commentary on the production. Great to see the reference with the film poster of “Lady in the Lake” mentioned, which the 1946 film noir was the first feature film to be shot in POV. in English Dolby Digital 2.0 with no subtitles The one commentary is the only extra on the disc. The US release from Universal contained an additional director’s solo commentary, deleted scenes and a featurette so the UK releases is the loser on the extras front. Would have loved to have seen some behind the scenes footage but most likely there weren’t other cameras around during the shooting as it would have interfered with the GoPro filming. At least rehearsal process footage would have been great to see but none is offered.
Overall
So will “Hardcore Henry” pave the way for more GoPro shot feature films? Possibly. It is a lot of fun regardless of the pretty thin plot. The EiV UK Blu-ray gives a good presentation of the film especially with the audio, but really skimps on the bonus features unfortunately. Would rather give a recommendation for the US Universal disc instead for people wanting to pick up a copy.
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