Hardcore Henry (2015)
"Henry is resurrected from death with no memory, and he must save his wife from a telekinetic warlord with a plan to bio-engineer soldiers."
- IMDB
PSA Hardcore Henry is a film that exists. First of all, if you’re someone who has weird motion sickness or can’t stand shaky cam in any form, ignore this recommendation. If you’re good with all that...... THEN STOP READING AND GO WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! It’s honestly one of the coolest films I’ve seen in a long time. My only wish is that I watched it sooner.
Hardcore Henry is a film entirely in the first-person point of view. Of course this is easily compared to an x number of video games. In terms of film of any kind..... I can only think of Markiplier and all of his creative projects on his channel, which are all 1st person as well. I love Mark’s projects, but Hardcore Henry takes it up a notch or 20 with it’s action. Hardcore Parkour is half the movie and its super cool. Henry has no dialogue so it was so easy to cast some sort of stunt man or parkour artist to play his part, attach a camera to his body, and let him go wild in the streets of Russia. It worked, man. We also get up close and personal to the gore and violence of the film. Just... everyone dies. With all the guns and explosions, no surprise, the deaths are brutal and not for the faint of heart. During our watch party, all my friends and I were constantly going like awwww watching this film. I will admit, it’s so hard to not use the word “hardcore” when talking about this movie, but it was just rightfully titled because hardcore is what Hardcore Henry is.
Now I feel like the story is where people might lose it. You’ve got this crazy sith lord, and every time I was like “why does he exist” I had to remind myself we were watching this cyberpunk android’s vision WHICH quick side note: There was a moment when Henry’s eyes were out of his skull and the screen was spilt between what both eyes saw. Just... um... just a cool Hardcore Henry thing.. There was also this random guy that popped up in the brothel and, maybe it was just because it was 2 am when I watched it, but I just could not follow his existence, and then it got even weirder when he shows up AGAIN and introduces himself to all his clones through a musical..... it was so random but for some reason it fit right in to the chaos of the film.
Anyways, you’ll never catch me watching this movie for the story. It’s all about the action, the concept, and the filming process.!!! Man I took some filming classes in college and had fellow students who had more interest in the technical art of film making than I did, but even this movie got me excited for those aspects. I’d enjoy a behind the scenes documentary just as much as the movie itself, and there aren’t too many movies I’d say that about.
So there you have it, if anything I’ve said appealed to you, please please please please go watch this movie. I think it’s on neflix. And not enough people talk about it.
My Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★
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