THE MORALITY TALE OF HARRY BROWN

A film about a vigilante pensioner may not seem promising material for a morality tale. But Harry Brown, with Michael Caine in the lead role, is an extremely powerful portrayal of Old Britain coming to the rescue of the self-destructing New.

Set on a drug-ridden and violent council estate, the film describes the transformation of an elderly ex-Marine, who has just lost his wife, into an old-school Cockney version of Dirty Harry. He punishes the thugs who brutally killed his elderly chess-playing friend Len in contrast to the police who are powerless to bring them to book and simply have to sit there in the interview room and take their foul abuse.

It is important to stress that no Christian should support vigilante action of this kind. The film conveniently supplies Harry with mobile phone footage of Len's murderers, but in real life the gathering of evidence and due process of law are needed to establish guilt and protect the innocent.

But the film does ask uncomfortable questions of the permissive society and two poignant moments particularly stand out: one when Harry places money taken from drug dealers in the collection box of a church with his eyes on the Crucifix on the wall; and the other when the female police inspector tells him rather sanctimoniously that the council estate is 'not Northern Ireland' where he had served as a soldier.

No, retorted Harry, over there the bad guys who committed vile acts did them for a cause. This lot are doing it for their own entertainment.

Michael Caine is magnificent in the role – there is an emotional depth to a typically adept acting performance which suggests that his characterisation of Harry Brown may have been fired by some element of righteous indignation. If that is so, then it is not difficult to see why he was able to bring that understated sense of moral outrage to his subtle portrayal of an honourable and decent man who reaches the point where the permissive society becomes too much.

Sir Maurice Micklewhite (aka Michael Caine) grew up in a traditional working class community in London in the 1940s and ‘50s when crime was relatively low and has consciously held on to many of the Judeo-Christian social values that nurtured him.

However, his generation of more conservatively-inclined opinion formers who came to prominence in the 1960s can rightly be accused of naivety. If they had looked at the world through clearly Christian eyes, then they would have seen the spiritual and moral destruction that was being sown in Western civilisation whilst they were enjoying success in the permissive society.

Harry Brown is a character from the the Old Britain of Sir Maurice's youth intervening in the moral wasteland that is the New and doing a certain amount of good. The film portrays his actions as helping to clean up the estate to a degree.

But that is wishful thinking. A vigilante pensioner cannot save Britain from spiritual and moral self-destruction; only the transforming power of gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ can do that.

PS Cranmer's Curate is conscious that the youth group will have differing views on capital punishment but this piece on the US-based orthodox Anglican news service VirtueOnline may be of interest.