‘Hardcore Henry’: Shorter is better

If you love movies that put you in the midst of the action, you may want to check out “Hardcore Henry.” Or not. Following is my review of the film, which I wrote for Spokane Public Radio :

Imagine that you wake up from a deep sleep. You remember nothing. All you see before you is a beautiful woman , a dream of a woman, and she is talking to you calmly, patiently.

She tells you a story. It’s your story, she says. You’re married, she says. But something happened. Something happened to you. And as she talks, she works. And you watch. You watch as she replaces a missing arm, a missing leg – your missing arm, your missing leg.

And you begin to realize that the replacements are not ordinary. Quite the contrary. They are the arms and legs of an android, limbs that possess incredible strength, and they are now part of you. And now you are not ordinary either.

But before you can get accustomed to this fact and all that it might mean, someone breaks into the room. Someone threatening. Someone who wants something that he thinks you possess. Only you don’t know what it is. But then, suddenly, the dream woman and you are running. Then you are falling. Then you are alone and being hunted.

Then, when all seems lost, a stranger saves you and beckons you to follow. And you do.

Welcome to “Hardcore Henry,” a film written and directed by Russian-born filmmaker Ilya Naishuller that is the closest movie equivalent yet to a first-person-shooter video game. Produced by, among others, Timur Bekmambetov – the visionary behind the fantasy-thrillers “Daywatch” and “Nightwatch” – “Hardcore Henry” is the big-screen version of what gamers who play “Halo” or “Call of Duty” or “Brother in Arms” experience every time they fire up their Playstation or Xbox.

That’s not to say that a videogame necessarily makes a good movie. After all, for every “Resident Evil” there’s an “Alone in the Dark” – the latter voted by Metacritic in 2010 as “the worst videogame adaptation of all time.”

And it would be hard to argue that “Hardcore Henry” is a good film. Oh, it’s clever enough. Naishuller and his crew keep the camera moving, with we the viewing audience seeing everything from our own perspective. And the sheer awesomeness of how we experience everything from our falling off buildings to fighting off gangs of bioengineered super-soldiers to tossing grenades and cleaving skulls is enough to keep anyone enthralled – at least for a while.

But then the feeling is likely to pale. Because unlike the best action films – say, the 2011 Indonesian-made “The Raid: Redemption” or the original “Die Hard”– “Hardcore Henry” has no more plot than what I’ve already shared. Henry must not only figure who he is, he must find a way to save his dream woman from the mysterious figure who, yes, is the genius behind all those super-soldiers. That’s about it.

Sharlto Copley is mildly entertaining as Jimmie, Henry’s stranger savior, especially in the various guises he adopts – all of whom engage in one extended sequence, a weird dance number that feels like Fred Astaire on psilocybin.

But the bludgeoning, butchering and bloodletting gets more than a bit old. And pretty soon, you may feel the urge – to fall back asleep.

Addendum : Actually, the concept behind “Hardcore Henry” is better realized in the videos that director Naishuller made as front man for the Russian band Biting Elbows. This one, for example , runs just over four and a half minutes. And when I first saw it awhile ago, I thought it was amazing. And it is. Just not for the duration of a full-length feature.

http://www.focusfeatures.com/9/castncrew?member=timur_bekmambetov