[yasr_overall_rating]
Ilya Nayshuller’s Hardcore Henry is a movie for kids who grew up playing first-person shooters and want to see that action without needing video game controllers. It’s more brutal than you could possibly expect, with no chance to catch your breath. Hardcore Henry is gutsy in form, forgetful in storytelling and adds to the long list of ways to kill people.
The story finds Henry (played by you, the audience) waking up without an arm and a leg. A woman named Estelle (Haley Bennett) tells Henry that he is her husband, although he has no memory of this. As a group of techs are getting Henry’s cyborg systems fixed, the superhuman Akan (Danila Kozlovsky) shows up to blow everything up. Henry is told to escape, immediately putting him on the run. While running around Moscow, shooting and killing anyone in his way, Henry is guided by the mysterious Jimmy (Sharlto Copley), who appears in various forms throughout the film.
This may be the plot, but Nayshuller just uses it as a guide and it’s very easy to get lost in the style of the film and completely ignore what the action has to do with the story. Nayshuller doesn’t care about stopping the action to further explain just what the f**k it was that you just saw. His filmmaking style is clearly more influenced by video game structure than film, as he strings together events like levels. Indeed, it all builds to a boss level that pits you against Akan, along with a twist.
Hardcore Henry is an extreme, singular experience. The crowd at the Paramount Theater in Austin went crazy with each shocking death, because it’s the kind of movie that demands an audience be a part of it of course. Even if you get grossed out by the events playing before you, it’s easy to see why you have to watch Hardcore Henry on the biggest possible screen with the largest possible audience.
This is also a movie that’s in on the joke. Nayshuller knows that the style is so hardcore that it’s in the title. It’s also begging you to laugh at continuous murders, particularly in a later setpiece where Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” blares while you kill hundreds of super soldiers dressed like they just came out of A Clockwork Orange. It’s all fun and games until someone doesn’t get killed.
Hardcore Henry is a prime example of a style-over-substance film. It makes no attempt to look below the surface, delve into character or plot. Nyshuller’s only goal is to kill as many people as possible in different ways. The film is more like an amusement park ride than a movie, in that the fun only lasts while you’re on it, or in the theater in this case. Henry is also like a ride because if you get motion sickness, you have to avoid it.
Hardcore Henry had its North American premiere at SXSW on March 13. STX will release the film on April 8.