If you're looking for-- as the ads promise-- an experience you've never had before in a movie theater, Hardcore Henry is it. But that doesn't necessarily qualify as a ringing endorsement. Director Ilya Naishuller has created a 90-minute action movie filmed entirely from a first-person perspective so that we see everything our mute protagonist sees, from every punch and shot fired to every frenetic jerk of the camera. If it reminds you of a video game, that's obviously by design. As uber-violent as its title implies, Hardcore Henry slides proudly into the "style over substance" category, but it can't fully overcome two key problems. It lacks any identifiable characters whatsoever and a little of the first-person craziness goes a long way.
The story's basic outline, that of a person waking up from a deep sleep with no memory of who he is or any idea of the power he's capable of, is always an intriguing science fiction concept. It begins with the human/cyborg Henry waking up in a lab to a doctor named Estelle (Haley Bennett), who claims to be his wife. Mere minutes later, the lab is raided by a warlord named Akan (Danila Koslovsky), who's more than eager to show of his telekinesis powers. Henry and Estelle escape the lab and end up in the streets of Moscow, where Akan's henchmen promptly ambush him and kidnap Estelle. Now, with the help of the ubiquitous Jimmy (Sharlto Copley), who has a seemingly endless supply of avatars of himself, it's up to Henry to take down the bad guys videogame style.
The plot is paper-thin, rocketing from one action set-piece to another, but that's fine (arguably preferred) for an action movie. It lets us concentrate on other things. But Hardcore Henry's problem is the complete absence of a relatable protagonist. Henry is a voiceless, faceless avatar who has no defining characteristics beyond his physicality. This works well when playing a video game, where a mute main character serves as an extension of the player, but a passive experience like Hardcore Henry needs some form of characterization. Without that, it's up to the supporting players to give us something to latch on to. Sharlto Copley certainly goes all out, firing away with gag after gag the way other characters fire bullets, but his zaniness can only do so much without a compelling main character. Haley Bennett and Danila Koslovsky fulfill their roles of damsel-in-distress and over-the-top bad guy, but aside from an intriguing late-game twist, there's not much to chew on regarding them, either.
And so we arrive at the million-dollar question: how does the first-person viewpoint hold up for an entire action movie? On the plus side, this approach sidesteps the trap of fast, incoherent editing (though the movie isn't shot all in one take; Naishuller makes small cuts here and there). Since we see everything from one man's perspective, we always know where the combatants are in relation to their environments. The unfortunate downside is that the spastic camera movements will give more than a few viewers motion sickness. Compared to this movie, popular "found footage" flicks like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield might as well be playing AA-ball. A few people left my screening and didn't come back. Even I had to close my eyes for a few seconds at a time to re-adjust.
Naishuller is acutely aware of the first-person-shooter influences in Hardcore Henry. The movie calls upon many tropes of the popular gaming genre, sometimes in very funny ways. The way Henry quickly switches from unarmed combat to an opponent's AK-47 is amusing, as is Jimmy's glib advice to Henry (consider him the fairy to Henry's Link). There are also some effectively bizarre touches, like the subtitles of two yelling women overlapping one another and an impromptu performance of Frank Sinatra's "I've Got You Under My Skin" performed by all off Jimmy's avatars. Another musical moment tops even that when Henry injects himself with adrenaline and goes on a rampage to the tune of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now." In a way, Hardcore Henry reminded me of Crank 2, where the filmmakers throw everything including the kitchen sink at us to compensate for the slim narrative and characters. Like that movie, it almost works. Almost, but not quite.
As a technical exercise the likes of which you probably haven't experienced before, Hardcore Henry fits the bill as long as you're not prone to motion sickness. But for me, I need a little more besides pure style to give a movie an unqualified recommendation as opposed to a so-so one. The movie lives up to the first word of its title, alright; it's graphic violence takes no prisoners. And as mixed as the results on screen are, I have to give Naishuller credit for trying something different. But perhaps it would play better as the video game it emulates after all.
Rating: **1/2 (out of ****)
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