New English Film has Powerful Reactionary Message: Mr. Brown

This film has been out in England since 2009 and it must have played a role in people's perceptions of the Labour Party as the old Death Wish films did for the Democrats before Ronald Reagan swept into the White House 20 years ago.

Michael Caine plays the highly decorated Royal Marine, Harry Brown with great subtlety and feeling in a film set in horrific tenements called, with certain irony, The Estates. It brings to mind Kubrik's flashy Clockwork Orange, with hints of social drama and a political message, but from a different and more reactionary and refreshing perspective.

Caine's menacing presence grows as the body count rises, and is subtly offset by a religious sentiment, piety for his wife and love for his friend and chess partner. This character will resonate with people possessed of sensible moral and political views, and may provide less thoughtful characters with some much needed introspection, indeed, repentance.

This gritty, trainspotting-like production resembles certain other American films and marks a growing cultural shift in the way many in the UK are viewing social problems and the role of certain political viewpoints have played in them.

Supporting actress, Emily Mortimer plays a powerful supporting role as an earnest but ineffectual female detective out of her depth who has been tasked with solving the murder of Harry Brown's murdered friend and proves incapable of confronting the evil (Yes, there is good and evil in this film too) gang members who are behind the murder in the film's rousing denouement.

The film pits an isolated but religious hero against a socialist dystopia whose agents do more harm to him than good, for while the Labour Government created the lawless conditions and social disconnection of the Estates by its policies, its agents and police are also unable to deal with problems. Problems only solveable by strong families and morality.

As Detective Emily Mortimer censures Mr. Brown sanctimoniously, reminding him that he is not in war-torn Ulster any longer, his retort is a well-deserved condemnation of Socialism and its brooding criminality, because the violent adolescents who are rioting, murdering and looting are not motivated by high ideals and a cause as his Sinn Fein antagonists once were, they are out for "entertainment".