Starring Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, May 21, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

A simple summary of the plot would make this 2009 British thriller sound like a geriatric version of Death Wish, but this film has more things going for it. Sadly, psychosocial complexity is not one of them. The thugs at the housing estate where pensioner Harry Brown (Michael Caine) lives are every bit as vile as the subhuman riffraff that Charles Bronson used to exterminate on the mean streets of New York and L.A. On the plus side, there’s no NRA propaganda in favour of settling personal disputes John Wayne–style. Harry Brown is too real for that.

The kids who prevent Harry and best pal, Leonard Attwell (David Bradley), from using a convenient pedestrian underpass are stoned out of their minds most of the time and must converge to survive. What they do is more effect than cause. Nevertheless, when Leonard is kicked and hacked to death by these juvenile delinquents, the recently widowed Harry loses his last positive connection to the world.

Although he now suffers from a host of physical disabilities, this former Royal Marines commando still remembers his time in Northern Ireland. Forgetting how to kill, apparently, is as hard to do as forgetting how to ride a bike. And at this point in his life, what does Harry have left to lose?

Director Daniel Barber, screenwriter Gary Young, and—especially—cinematographer Martin Ruhe have a tremendous sense of pace, and they go out of their way to make this film look as exciting as possible. Throw in some above-average acting (especially from Caine) and you have the makings of an above-average revenge drama that is easily the equal of the actor’s much earlier Get Carter.