Movie Reviews: Dirty Hands, Furry Vengeance, Harry Brown

HARRY BROWN Purely for the reliable pleasure of Michael Caine's company, I came ready to praise what threatened to be another miserabilist drama of life and death in Broken Britain. For a while, Caine holds his own as the titular pensioner, defeat registered in the quiescent slump of his shoulders, as he trudges through his last days living on a burnout London housing estate. Around him, a cheap knockoff of Prime Suspect takes shape, laden with copious "guvs" and "ma'ams" and "I've spoken to Division, and they concur" issuing from the hackneyed pen of screenwriter Gary Young. You won't have to put up with this for long — worse is on its way, notably when the killing of a good friend turns Harry Brown into Dirty Harry, and he starts blowing away half the no-good youth of today in exponentially aggravated scenes of brutality and implausibility. No one will listen to Emily Mortimer's Detective Inspector, a soggy substitute for Helen Mirren, who remains unpersuaded that lumpen London is consuming itself without help from a killer, and sets off in heroic pursuit of the lone culprit. Director Daniel Barber's lame hand-wringing about the root causes of youthful alienation forms a thin veneer over the real purpose of this self-important piece of rubbish: to hold us hostage to the director's bottomless appetite for spurious depravity. (Ella Taylor) (Citywide)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was not screened in advance of our deadline, but a review will appear here next week and can be found at laweekly.com/movies. (Citywide)

TIMER A high-concept, low-budget romantic comedy that integrates science fiction (similar to Brad Anderson's underrated Happy Accidents), writer-director Jac Schaeffer's pleasant feature debut first requires a ridiculous leap of faith: that a biotech gizmo might be able to pinpoint your soul mate. (If true, Apple is on it.) Soon to be 30, love-obsessed dentist Oona (Emma Caulfield) has dragged every potential new beau to the TiMER clinic to be outfitted with a wrist implant, which counts down the time until you'll meet your perfect match — assuming they've jacked in, too. Oona's biological clock literally flashes like an unprogrammed VCR, while her stepsister and roommate, Steph (Michelle Borth), sleeps around, killing time until she's set to meet Mr. Right at 43. Perhaps it's nitpicking to scold Schaeffer for adhering to the genre's feel-good trappings, when a more rebellious auteur might've had Oona beeping in the presence of someone disabled, another woman, or a long-lost relative. The titular device draws attention from any heartfelt connections, and the film's bland aesthetics and movie-cute cast kick up unsolicited nostalgia for many a '90s indie. A romcom is a romcom, however, and at least this one's more charming than most of Jennifer Aniston's career. (Aaron Hillis) (Monica 4)