“Hardcore Henry” is an explosive action flick filmed entirely from a first-person perspective. It’s even more disorientating than “Cloverfield” and “Blair Witch Project” combined. It also feels more like watching somebody play “Call Of Duty” than watching a film.
Henry is resurrected as super-powered cyborg but he has no memory of who he is. He is thrown into one intense action sequence after another after the telekinetic bad guy Akan (Danila Kozlovsky “Vampire Academy”) kidnaps his wife (Haley Bennett “The Girl On The Train”). Get ready for little to no plot yet lots of the camera shaking around like it’s strapped to rollercoaster.
It’s incredibly hard to connect with Henry because we never fully see his face and he never speaks because his voice module was never installed. The fact he lacks the ability to speak made this film feel even more like a videogame. Apparently, Henry was played by several different stuntmen because they kept getting neck injuries from wearing the camera. The villain Akan is very disappointing. Sharlto Copley (“District 9”) plays Jimmy and he’s pretty annoying. I do have to praise the work of the stunt people in this movie because there is one exciting action scene after another; pity we get such a poor view of it.
There is a reason why there have not been many films shot entirely in first-person and it’s because it does make the viewer feel sick and it also robs us of a clear view of what is going on. In this desperate race to make videogames and movies more like one another, videogames have becoming more complex with more detailed characters and stories, films have been dumbing these aspects down. “Hardcore Henry” is arguably trying harder than any other movie to be just like a videogame. I cannot in anyway recommend a film that is likely to make many people want to vomit.