Hardcore Henry (2015)
Hardcore Henry notes:
In 1995, co-writer/producer James Cameron and his then-wife Kathryn Bigelow uncorked the gritty, violent, over-sexualized dystopian near-future action thriller “Strange Days.” Starring Ralph Fiennes after his breakout role in “Schindler’s List” but before his nearly career-ending performance as John Steed in “The Avengers,” “Strange Days” imagined a world obsessed with SQUID recordings of people’s memories. Whether it’s an afternoon out roller-skating on Venice Beach or an adrenaline-fueled rooftop chase that ends in the death of the SQUID recorder, these recordings allow people that are “jacked in” to replay events and experience them as if they are happening real time with the same sights, sounds, and feelings as the original SQUID-wearer. So yeah, plenty of sexy moments are on the black market, as are recordings where the person recording died, resulting in a “blackjack” playback – essentially a first-person snuff film.
As a result, “Strange Days” has some pretty wild and thrilling moments. It’s often a mean-spirited movie, and apparently that was more the work of Kathryn Bigelow than Cameron who has claimed she was more interested in the edginess of the premise while he tried to embellish the romance and heart of the piece. And like all of Cameron’s movies, technology had to be developed in order for the world of the movie to be fully realized. In this case, the “First-person” SQUID recordings required some special rigging and cameras to make them seem authentic. And the opening segment – the aforementioned chase that ends in a perilous bit of rooftop parkour gone awry – is said to have taken two years to develop and produce alone so that it appeared seamless and the action appeared realistic.
Fast forward 30 years later and we have 2015’s “Hardcore Henry” where instead of scenes of first-person mayhem we’re treated to an entire film-worth of what Bigelow was trying to achieve.
Hardcore Henry is relentlessly fast-paced with awkward stretches where it catches its breath to force-feed the viewer exposition before racing on to the next pulse-quickening action set-piece.
The action is shockingly bold and will occasionally cause a viewer to wince or raise a “how did they do that?” eyebrow. Director Ilya Naishuller knows how to keep things moving quickly – perhaps knows too well – and the breakneck pace does wear one down after a while. The movie becomes exhausting after a while, what between the hyperviolent kills, acrobatic action segments, and Sharlto Copley’s positively bonkers scenery chewing as a series of clones that help Henry along his path of bloody vengeance.
Plot? Henry, whose eyes we see everything through, is awakened in a lab by his wife, Estelle, a scientist, and it is revealed he had died and is now a mute cyborg. Before you can get much more than that, the lab is attacked by a maniacal, psycho-kinetic big-bad named Akan who wants to create an army of Henry’s for some kind of domination or another. Escaping the attack, it’s revealed the lab was on a blimp and Henry and Estelle crash to terra firma where she dies and he is relentlessly pursued. Occasionally, he is helped along the way by Jimmy, the true inventor of the tech that brought back Henry, who somehow keeps dying but then re-appears in different forms to ensure Henry makes it to the next level of the video game. Or whatever.
Yeah, you’re not here for plot. This thing is essentially a stunningly choreographed ultraviolent first-person shooter game. I imagine there was probably a lot of people who wanted “Doom” to be like this and Uwe Boll probably marveled at the skill of Ilya Naishuller as his own “House of the Dead” couldn’t do first-person half as well as this.
Apparently Henry was played by no-less than ten stuntmen, including director Naishuller. Two of the stuntment who did the most work suffered neck injuries due to the rigging they had to wear on their heads.
For what its worth, while this thing – even at 96 minutes – is A LOT to endure, Naishuller later directed 2021’s “Nobody” with the excellent Bob Odenkirk and made a much more palatable, but just as unflinchingly violent action picture. But Hardcore is indeed, Hardcore. If you can imagine a first-person version of “Crank” where you see everything from Jason Statham’s perspective, then you’re on to this thing’s wavelength. There are gun fights in crowded city streets, a brothel, during a car chase where you’re on a motorcycle, in the woods, and a final battle-royale atop a skyscraper where you, as Henry, battle no less than forty or so not-so-super-soldiers before duking it out with Akan and Estelle who, it’s revealed, was Akan’s wife and not Henry’s! So who the fuck was Henry? I have no idea, and I’m not sure it really ever mattered. All that mattered was that we got to see lots and lots of exceptionally violent and gory deaths.
IMDB lists no less than 260 credits for the Visual Effects on this movie, which was allegedly made for around $2 million. Just so you know, Strange Days was made for $30 million in 1995 dollars, which I think would equal something like $60 million now, so… dayum, these VFX people in Russia are getting paid dogshit.
Naishuller, incidentally, was my favorite guest ever on Joe Dante and Josh Olson’s podcast “The Movies That Made Me” and his enthusiasm for film and filmmaking was contagious, exciting and really, really fun to listen to. I almost never recommend someone listen to a podcast, but hearing jaded Joe Dante, who is often nearly silent on this show he co-hosts, gush over Naishuller’s story of growing up a Russian kid and steadily making his dreams of becoming a moviemaker come true is the whole reason we pop in ear buds. Fantastic stuff. If I had 1/1oth the passion of Naishuller as a filmmaker, I might still be directing movies today.
Movies as experiences: Blair WIitch Project vs. Hardcore Henry and the idea of found footage versuse POV filmmaking. This is real filmmaking, not just imagination, but choreography, shot selection, stunt-work, chaotic but expert cinematography, less method acting and more exposition.
Bottom Five Birthdays:
The Omen (1976)
dir. Richard Donner – This is about as obvious as it gets and it was the first thing my mind raced to when you mentioned bottom five birthdays. Is there honestly much worse than your nanny hanging herself in front of a group of family and friends at a lovely outdoor birthday party? I guess so, because this is my number 5, at this position because my other bad birthday’s happen to ruin the character’s days but this one actually was, “All for you, Damien.” Also, it was his fifth birthday.
The Amazing Spider-man 2 (2014)
dir. Marc Webb – Many movies lay it on when it comes to villain origin stories, but damn is Max Dillon’s brutal. It’s his birthday, he is forced to work late at Oscorp by a boss who stole his ideas and claimed credit for himself. And then while on his extra shift, he falls into a VAT OF ELECTRIC EELS and is turned into a maniacal electric being hell-bent on destruction. And he never got to have that cake “from Spidey” that was designed to reference his comic book outfit (green with yellow lighting bolts.)
The Birds (1963)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock – Cathy’s 11th birthday party when the kids get attacked by seagulls while playing pin the tail on the donkey. With all the preceding askew looks at Tippi Hedren’s Melanie Taylor and Rod Taylor’s Mitch Brenner, the undercurrents of this birthday party seemed dark and unsettling on a good day. It’s a sparsely-attended affair and dreary, despite the beach setting and sun shining. Then there’s squacking and flailing, and before anyone can cut the cake or blow out some candles we’ve got a house filled with freaked-out crying kids and some adults who seem decidedly more concerned about birds rather than the birds and the bees.
Frankenhooker (1990)
Dir. Frank Henlotter – Mr. Shelley’s birthday party when his daughter Elizabeth is decapitated by a remote-controlled lawnmower invented by Elizabeth’s fiance Jeffrey. But nothing I can say about this birthday, or Elizabeth’s death, can be said better than the film’s newscast that recounts the horrific calamity… “What began as a birthday barbecue ended in a bizarre tragedy in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey today. It was this power mower that brought a quick end to the life of 21-year old, bride-to-be, Elizabeth Shelley. Like wood through a mulcher, the girthful fiance disappeared beneath the blades of the berserk mower that sent her personality raining down upon the birthday revelers. In a blaze of blood, bones, and body parts, the vivacious young girl was instantly reduced to a tossed human salad, a salad that police are still trying to gather up, a salad that was once named Elizabeth.” Fantastic. If you’ve never seen Frankenhooker, bump it ahead of everything else on your list and treat yourself tonight. Patty Mullen turns in what I believe to be one of the most terrifically funny performances by any actress, ever. Period.
Smile (2021)
dir. Parker Finn – Imagine your aunt coming to your house for your birthday, unexpectedly because she is always too busy to visit, and she has a big gift for you. So then you open it, expecting that maybe your mom told her to buy you your favorite thing, a toy train, you couldn’t possibly be ready to reveal your aunt’s dead cat in the box instead of a choo-choo. If that wasn’t enough, auntie goes beserk, starts screaming and then crashes through a glass coffee table like Matt Foley, gashing herself in the process! This is like Aunt Bethany from Christmas Vacation but with a deeply darker bent. Maybe I’m just too big a cat fan to let this one slide, but I have to say, it’s at number one with a bullet for me. Nothing could be more unsettling or permanently trauma-inducing than this.