“Hardcore Henry” rolled into theaters this week, building some buzz as the first movie of its kind: an action movie filmed entirely in the first-person perspective.
Directed by newcomer Ilya Naishuller and starring the silent and never seen Henry, played by a variety of stuntmen, “Hardcore Henry” presented an interesting viewing experience.
The film follows Henry, a military agent turned cyborg on the run. After his scientist girlfriend is kidnapped by an evil telekinetic Russian looking to use her technology that healed him in order to create a super robot army, Henry must do all he can to save her and prevent world domination.
Though the plot sounds simple, it is an extremely complicated movie. Aside from the main plot, almost any other additional character or element was introduced at random, with no explanation or background, and then never explained further. It’s hard to go into specifics since there are so many instances where this occurs.
In fact, even the main plot featured a surprise twist in the end that, yes, the audience may have not seen coming, but only because is was so out of left field with no motivation or background information offered whatsoever.
The characters in the movie were also poorly done. For example, Henry’s girlfriend was supposed to come off as loving and distressed, but her acting skills just made her unlikable and unbelievable. The evil Russian villain spoke in such a way that it made it seem like his lines were typed into a computer and the electronic voice spit them back out on a voice over. Henry may have been the best actor, mostly because he never said a word.
The movie also heavily relied on action and violence, to the point of being overkill (excuse the pun). When shot from a first-person point of view, you can only see people get stabbed or shot so many times before you start to become disgusted by it. Also, the first-person camera work caused the chase scenes to be quite nauseating at times.
“Hardcore Henry” may have been one of the worst movies I have ever seen. A simplified yet completely complicated plot, underdeveloped characters with bad acting skills, and an oversaturation of violence, gore and nudity made this movie one that I wish I could’ve left during the first ten minutes. It was like if they made Grand Theft Auto into a terrible movie.
I appreciate the attempt at trying something new when it comes to the first-person camera view, but everything about this movie was awful. Just don’t go see it.
