Filmology Rating: 1.8 out of 4

Hardcore Henry is being classified as the first movie to take place entirely within the first person point of view. With this filmmaking style comes a specific set of strengths and weaknesses. The strengths of the first person point of view lie in the high level of immersion and the visceral experiences that come with being a first person action movie. On the other hand, the weaknesses are very pronounced. Not only does this style lead to a poorly defined main character, but it can also be quite a nauseating experience. Overall, Hardcore Henry contains more of the latter than the former. 

Hardcore Henry is a very basic movie at its core. The story plays out much like a nonstop action video game. The story focuses on a man named Henry who is awoken in a mysterious lab by some sort of scientist. We quickly learn that this scientist is Henry’s wife and that she has done her best to try to revive Henry to his former self through cybernetic enhancements. A laughably evil villain appears within minutes and kidnaps Henry’s wife, sending him on a rampage of revenge. Henry lands somewhere in Russia and soon meets the mysterious Jimmy. Jimmy is a man who seems to almost be a figment of Henry’s imagination. He gives Henry directions and dies several times early on, only to appear later with a different personality. Jimmy, who is played by Sharlto Copley, stands as the only developed character in the movie. Sharlto Copley is well known for playing major roles in several sci-fi and action blockbusters. His performance in the film is both varied and eccentric and deserving of praise. The movie attempts to flesh out the character of Henry and his motivations through some vague flashbacks to his father, but these scenes play out as dull and pointless. In the end, Hardcore Henry plays out like a dozen YouTube videos that are poorly stitched together. The story itself is very light, but how does the movie play out?

Poorly. The direction of Hardcore Henry seems to care little for its characters, plot, or even its style. An opening montage of close-up kills in the red color spectrum lead me to believe that the film will be stylistically strong. In a way, style is one of the only characteristics that a first person action movie should contain. YouTube contains hundreds of short first person action films that are equal part action and style. Hardcore Henry seems to forget the importance of style. What the viewer gets with Harcore Henry is an hour and a half action fest that is both blisteringly fast, and painfully slow. Some chases scenes won’t even play out in real time. A first person action movie is meant to immerse us with the experience of the character, so why would you cut a chase sequence several times so we don’t know how much time or distance has passed. At a certain point in the film (about an hour in) the action wears itself incredibly thin and I found myself to be quite tired. Feeling the need for a nap during a non-stop action movie should not be a problem. What Hardcore Henry doesn’t seem to understand is that the audience occasionally needs a change of pace. Even action video games will occasionally mix up their gameplay so there is some degree of variety. Although I expected Hardcore Henry to be a very male-centric movie, I was taken occasionally taken aback by how vulgar and explicit the film appeared to be at times. This heavily male centered focus makes the film very difficult to recommend to anyone but the most hardcore action fans. 

Hardcore Henry is not an abysmal movie. Sharlto Copley’s performance and some of the action set pieces are well executed. But, in the end, I left Hardcore Henry feeling both physically and mentally nauseous.

Rating: Skip It

-Tyler