Propaganda Film
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Harry Brown
SonOfKyuss — 14 years ago(December 02, 2011 07:17 PM)
I just watched this film and while I did find it entertaining and well made, it felt like a right wing propaganda film. Similar to Red Dawn and Death Wish, the right wing messages in this film made me uncomfortable.
The film seems to push an anti gun-control agenda, glorifying vigilante gun violence. The politically motivated riots in England (which were happening as this was being produced) were portrayed as displays of senseless violence perpetuated by thugs. Anyone associated with the criminals is judged and sentenced to death by Harry, including the gun dealer's assistant and the young hoodlum who we see get sexually abused. Maybe these two hoods should be arrested, but do we really feel comfortable seeing them assassinated because of the company they keep? I think this was a good movie with a bad message. -
aliasbrush — 14 years ago(December 05, 2011 12:20 PM)
I think you're reading too much into it. I don't know where you got an 'anti gun-control agenda' from. The movie I saw was about a typical group of yobs (the type I used to see every day) terrorising a neighbourhood, and one man with nothing left to lose striking back at them to avenge the murder of his friend.
And politically motivated riots in the UK??! Where on earth did you get that one from? Most people involved in those riots had no idea about the original incident that sparked them off and just wanted to join in the 'fun'. Random innocent people were being attacked for no reason whatsoever. The yobs setting fires to shops and cars had no more justification that I would have, but just took advantage of a police SERVICE (no longer a force) that had been rendered powerless to stop them.
Back to the film, Harry wasn't going around randomly executing people. If anything, most of his violence was done in self-defence simply because of the situations he put himself in. Out of all the people he killed, only the guy in the car had not attempted to cause direct harm to either Harry or someone else in the story, but I guarantee he would have if given half a chance.
You sound like someone who is so clueless about some of the areas in the UK. I could bloody show you a few where if you walked in them after 5pm, you wouldn't walk out again. And if you don't hear so many stories in the news, that's because few ever get any publicity, and most people are afraid to leave their homes. -
bgh122 — 14 years ago(December 10, 2011 10:07 AM)
A-frickin'-men, Alias. Maybe you and I could take this fellow on a tour of some areas with some really 'politically motivated' youths? I'm sure they'd show him some lovely political discourse, so lovely in fact that he'd require some months in a hospital for convalescence.
Seriously, OP, people like
you
are the cause of insane right wing opinions. People like you, who have
no
experience of what some of us suffer through, yet decide to tell us that what we see on a daily basis is untrue, cause people to become reactionary.
Personally, I'd love to institute a policy where the offender has to live in Croydon for one month per use of the following words:
Disaffected
Socially Excluded
Oppressed
Police State
Deprived
Politically Motivated
I think that'd solve all the misconceptions regarding the motivations of the yobs involved in the riots. -
hugh1971 — 13 years ago(August 01, 2012 03:56 AM)
Preach on, bgh122! The London riots had NOTHING to do with politics. What connection did politics have with setting fire to building while people were still in them, destroying small family businesses like barber shops and sweet shops, and murdering ordinary citizens who tried to defend their property. The main cause of the UK's social problems is that those in power are Guardian-reading sentimentalist fools who have never been anywhere outside Hampstead.
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avia2 — 11 years ago(December 04, 2014 12:45 PM)
The main cause of the UK's social problems is that those in power are Guardian-reading sentimentalist fools who have never been anywhere outside Hampstead.
A bit harsh. Britain had right-wing governments for centuries, but that didn't prevent horrific slum violence across Victorian London.
The 2011 riots were basically materialistic The rioters were greedy for things they couldn't afford, because the media keeps telling youngsters they'll be losers if they don't have the latest iPhone.
So yes you can also blame the government for allowing such advertising to target low-income youths. -
rkhues — 11 years ago(February 08, 2015 10:15 PM)
What a load of garbage. I have lived in what some people have described as the rougher areas of London, and while common sense dictates about walking around streets at night, etc, its nothing like how it is portrayed in this movie. Its obviously a propaganda film, seeing as David Cameron sat at the press conference with Michael Caine in promoting its release. Im tired of paranoid rich people telling the less well off how scary the lives they lead are, in order to carry out right wing policies of law and order - I do think people can all get along.
Harry Brown serves as a throwback to the old Dirty Harry/Death Wish movies, but set in Britain. As a thriller and a work of fiction its competently acted and directed. As a representation of the real world its a load of garbage. -
totalbollacks — 10 years ago(November 03, 2015 04:26 PM)
What a load of garbage. I have lived in what some people have described as the rougher areas of London, and while common sense dictates about walking around streets at night, etc, its nothing like how it is portrayed in this movie. Its obviously a propaganda film, seeing as David Cameron sat at the press conference with Michael Caine in promoting its release. Im tired of paranoid rich people telling the less well off how scary the lives they lead are, in order to carry out right wing policies of law and order - I do think people can all get along.
Nah, its the less well off who have their homes and cars broken into by scrotes who want cash for a bag and a better phone than their mates. The middle classes are better served because their districts are better patrolled and scrotes stand out llike the proverbial sore thumb when out of their shyteholes.
Only the Audi S6 and BM M3 scrotes do well out of the hell that they make, their slaves just get to be addicted and have to go on the rob.
It isn't a case of "scary", it is the problem of just getting a crime number for all the stuff that you worked hard for being taken to feed the drugs pyramid. -
vortexrider — 13 years ago(October 17, 2012 03:16 AM)
I see your point but you should allow for the possibility that you at some point were affected by the propaganda from the left wing, which made you believe gun-control is always good, vigilantes are always bad,
I don't know whether you make a distinction between protest, peaceful protest, and riots. What the world saw in England were political protests that turned into full out riots. We had similar things on smaller scale in USA, but less violent. There is protest and there is breaking windows and throwing rocks. At you defending rocks thrown at police and broken glass? I don't know.
Perhaps this dim does take a stance on politics of law enforcement, and maybe it does criticize rioting. But it was probably made or those people who agree with the film. Not you.
Also for something to be termed propaganda the government has to sponsor or produce it. Otherwise it is just a film which takes an admittedly biased opinion. -
Blarhhh — 13 years ago(October 27, 2012 09:06 AM)
for something to be termed propaganda the government has to sponsor or produce it
No it doesn't. (Except, perhaps, in America. But even that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't.)
propaganda - noun1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.4. Roman Catholic Church . a. a committee of cardinals, established in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV, having supervision over foreign missions and the training of priests for these missions. b. a school (College of Propaganda) established by Pope Urban VIII for the education of priests for foreign missions.5. Archaic. an organization or movement for the spreading of propaganda.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/propaganda
"No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?" -
Simon-140 — 11 years ago(May 18, 2014 12:04 AM)
Yes, I would call it propaganda of a particularly odious, populist kind. Any film that provokes people to get online and proclaim "I believe in torture," "Sometimes an oppressive government can be good," not to mention posts by gun-crazed, wannabe vigilantes who think citizens have a rightful place in the legal enforcement process, is not just propaganda: it's successful propaganda.
This is a shame, as Michael Caine's acting was excellent and the film was generally well made. -
Simon-140 — 11 years ago(July 13, 2014 09:04 PM)
You are precisely the sort of person that I believe ought to be rendered to some failed state for vigorous, car-battery and water-board assisted re-education. There's a great little novel called
1984
(or
Nineteen Eighty Four
) that sketches what I have in mind for you.
How many fingers am I holding up?