It's like Mike Leigh remade Death Wish.
Michael Caine lives on an abhorrent London council estate, which is dominated
by criminal chav scum. His family are all dead, and he only has one friend.
Who the chav scum then hound to death. Being an ex marine, and having basically
no reason to live any more, he decides to do the world a favour and kill them
all.
This is not a happy film. In any way. This is not about the catharsis of
revenge, there is no redemption. This is a man driven to compromise himself
utterly, out of pure despair. Nor is Caine playing and apparently
indestructible badass old man. He's slow, he's stumbling, and his only real
advantage over his opponents is that he's learned how to shoot straight, at his
target, rather than panic fire all over the place. The ultimate message of the
film appears to be that violence isn't the answer, but it's as close as you're
going to get, because there is no answer.
This is the least glamourous violent film I have ever seen, I think. It's
massively bleak, very well shot, and leaves you with ambiguous feelings about
practically everything that happens in it. I thoroughly recommend it with the
following reservation: if you are not in the mood for it, this film could be
very depressing indeed. It is, however, very worthwhile.