Hardcore Henry
Tags: comedy, avant garde, suspenseful, murder, violence, flashback, good versus evil, absurd, psychedelic, revenge, sadist

Plot synopsis:
Note: this entire, experimental film takes place from the first-person POV (point-of-view) of Henry.The film starts with a memory from Henry's childhood. Three bullies stand before him, and one of them is holding a toy of Henry's. The bully hurls the toy against the wall and smashes it. A man, Henry's father (Tim Roth), looks at him and says "You...little...pussy..."The adult Henry wakes up in a facility. A woman named Estelle (Haley Bennett) brings him up from a water tank. Henry sees he's missing his left forearm and his left leg below the knee. Estelle replaces them with robotic limbs. Henry is unable to speak because his voice box hasn't been installed yet, and he has no memory of how he got to where he is. Estelle claims that she is Henry's wife.Estelle brings Henry into a room with two other scientists, Robbie (Will Stewart) and Timothy (Ilya Naishuller). They prepare to install Henry's voice until a team of mercenaries led by Akan (Danila Kozlovsky) storm in. They blow the door open, crushing Robbie. Akan asks Timothy to explain Henry's arrival at the facility. Timothy says that Henry's limbs were shot off and his skull was fractured badly until now. Akan then uses telekinetic powers to levitate Timothy and stab him to death. He plans to create an army of soldiers similar to Henry. Estelle plays a loud sound to hold the mercs off and give her and Henry a chance to run. She leads him to an escape pod for the two of them. They are ejected from the facility, which happens to be up in the sky. The pod lands on a bridge.After Henry pulls Estelle out of the pod, another team of mercs led by Yuri (Oleg Poddubnyy) arrive. Estelle tells Henry to engage them. Henry punches Yuri and gets a few good hits, but the mercs take him down, and Yuri pushes Henry off the bridge. He lands on a car and then runs into a freight container. There, he finds a car and turns it on, letting it roll out to hit the mercs. He fights the mercs until a van runs through and plows through the villains. The driver is a man named Jimmy (Sharlto Copley). He kills two other mercs and tells Henry to follow him, knowing who he is.As they drive, Jimmy tells Henry to open the glove box, where he finds a charger for his body. They are stopped by two cops, who turn out to be dirty crooks working for Akan. They shoot Jimmy in the head, forcing Henry to run through the subway for safety. The cops find him there, but Henry fights them and shoots one of them to death. Henry runs back out into the streets and onto a bus. There, he finds Jimmy (actually a clone) dressed like a homeless man. He rips a tracking device out of Henry's arm and then tells him to find a man named Slick Dimitry (Andrei Dementiev) and take his booster pad from his chest, and then to meet up with Jimmy after the task is complete. Jimmy then looks out the window and sees a man in a metal suit. He sticks his head out to make fun of him until the man wields a flamethrower. Homeless Jimmy gets burnt alive, and Henry must run again.Henry finds the building where Dimitry is located. He climbs the building and enters through a window. He kills the goons he comes across before making it into Dimitry's room. Dimitry is motionless. On his monitor, Estelle appears to tell Henry that Akan has begun with his plan and is preparing his army. Dimitry then springs up and attacks Henry. Henry chases Dimitry through the building and then through the city. Dimitry stumbles, giving Henry a chance to beat him. Dimitry then says he has something to say regarding Jimmy, but his head is blown off before he can say anything else. Henry evades the mercs.Henry arrives at the location Jimmy told him to find him, which is a brothel. Henry meets Cokehead Jimmy laying with five women. Jimmy tries to put the booster pad into Henry's chest, but he's in a bad condition to do so. He leaves Henry with the women, who comment on Henry being cute and then start playing with him. He starts seeing memories of himself and Estelle getting intimate. A more shaped-up Jimmy shows up and installs the booster pad. More villainous mercs show up. Henry shoots through them before reaching a room where Akan is sitting. He kills a man by flinging a silver plate into his head. Akan escapes, and Henry kills more mercs. He and Jimmy run into two dominatrix assassins, Katya (Darya Charusha) and Olga (Svetlana Ostinova), who also have a bone to pick with Akan. Jimmy then orders Henry to hop on a motorcycle and chase after one of Akan's vans.Henry rides the motorcycle and shoots more mercs on the van, while also hurling some grenades their way. He gets to the main van and slices two more goons before he finds Estelle. They embrace, but Akan rears his ugly head and blows a hole into the van to make his entrance. He uses his powers to knock Henry out.Henry awakens in the woods surrounded by more mercs. They get quickly killed off by Hippie Jimmy. Henry follows him and another woman until they get killed by an explosion. Henry faces MORE MERCS, including a few riding a tank through the woods. He slices his way through them before killing some mercs in a chopper.Henry arrives at the apartment building where Jimmy's laboratory is located. First he comes across some dirty cops attempting to rape a woman. Henry shoots two of the cops before squeezing the last one's crotch like a grape and then shoving a shotgun barrel down his throat. Henry enters Jimmy's lab and sees a video of Jimmy working with Akan to create his cyborg army from the remains of deceased men. When the experiment went wrong, Akan crippled Jimmy by shattering his spine. The original Jimmy rolls in and shows off his clones to Henry through a rehearsed dance routine. Punk Jimmy then accuses Henry of being a traitor because he is involuntarily broadcasting his whereabouts to Akan. Original Jimmy decides to trust Henry and make sure that Akan doesn't get anywhere near the lab.Three of the clones (Punk, Camouflage, and Colonel) lead Henry outside to face the onslaught of mercs heading toward the building. Henry and Camouflage snipe some of the mercs down below while Punk gets some kills from the ground before getting blown up. Camouflage leaves Henry to join the Colonel as he drops himself down with a grenade. Henry and Colonel shoot and blow up some mercs. Yuri and his mercs arrive, but Colonel kills them by blowing up the ceiling and bringing it down on them. Jimmy has been hit with a shard in his jugular. Knowing he's dying, he tells Henry that he had seen him originally before he had woken up and noticed a memory block in his head and had it left in there, but he knows that some of his memories are returning. Before dying, he says it's good to have had Henry as a friend, and asks him to make sure he looks into Akan's eyes as he kills him.Henry makes it to Akan's facility for the final showdown. Akan has his cyborgs ready to go. He reveals to Henry that all of them woke up the same way Henry did, with Estelle claiming to be their wife and acting as though she loved them, including Henry. Akan unleashes the cyborgs upon Henry. He proceeds to kill them in every which way imaginable (shooting, stabbing, slashing, grenades, heads blown off, sliced off, eyes gouged out, etc.) Henry makes it to the roof to face Akan, but he is taken down by Akan's powers, and even harder when Estelle shows up, clearly on Akan's side. Akan taunts Henry as he's down and knocks him to the side, where he faces some glass and we get a vague look at Henry's face, which is similar to that of his father's.We see the childhood flashback again. Henry's father says his own father used to call him a pussy, and he feels he proved him right by killing the wrong people, but he vows to call Henry by his own name and tells him to fight back. In the present, Henry grabs two adrenaline needles and continues killing the rest of the cyborgs. He ties barbed wire around his hand and manages to get close enough to Akan to hurt him. He splits Akan's hand apart painfully. Akan uses his powers to lift Henry up, but Henry gets close again and pulls out his own eye stalk to wrap it around Akan's head and sever the top half off.Henry boards the chopper and shows off Akan's head to Estelle. She furiously shoots at Henry until he holds his hand up, causing the bullet to ricochet and strike her. Estelle stumbles out of the chopper and hangs on. She pleads with Henry to listen to his heart. Apparently, his heart told him to close the door on her fingers and let her plummet to the ground below.

Review: I am not a major fan of FPS games, but having the entire movie filmed with Go Pro's, along with the great action made this a very fun and enjoyable movie.
The acting, while little of it, was passable and did not really strike me as "bad." If you are a person who can't stand something like the Bourne movies for their shaky cam, do not see this.
If you love action movies and really want to admire great fight scenes and plenty of mayhem, go see this.And for those saying the idea is not original, yes, movies shot in first person are not original.
The whole movie is a blast!!Ilya Naishuller is a young director who had a very cool idea to shoot an action film from a first-person perspective using a GoPro Hero3 Black Edition camera.
You likely won't get dizzy watching a 90-minute action film from an FP perspective.
This movie is INSANELY awesome!!!If I could rate it a 20, I would, just from the shear story telling, character investment and novel first-person POV, not to mention all the video game tropes, puns, and long shots!!At least 90% of the movie are long shots, that's how well it was directed!It contains a LOT of elements from Counter Strike, Modern Warfare, Half- Life 2, Portal and Mirrors Edge, so if you like those games, you should absolutely love this movie!It has a LOT of gore in it, so I wouldn't recommend it to the squeamish, but if you're a high-octane true-blooded alpha male like myself, you should absolutely love it!.
'Hardcore Henry (2016)' is an interesting experiment, an action film told entirely from the first-person perspective.
The video-game feel - which is bolstered by several clichés, such as a silent protagonist and 'tutorial' moments -can lead to some frustration as it just seems like you're watching someone else play when you'd rather take the controls yourself.
There's firepower, there's parkour, there's sex, blood, drugs, and rock n' roll, HARDCORE HENRY is brutal through and through and you can't get enough.It's a Russian film featuring familiar faces like Sharlto Copley, Tim Roth, and the beautiful rising star, Haley Bennett.
Ilya did give us that Biting Elbows' viral POV music video, and so take that and turn up the amp to 11, and you get HARDCORE HENRY.I had my doubts at first, I mean the trailer looked awesome, an entire movie done POV-stye, who wouldn't want to watch that out of plain curiosity!
But my concern was that the film would feel like you're just watching a GoPro video instead of something that's cinematic, another concern was that if a few minutes of the first "Cloverfield" already had my head go dizzy, what would 96 minutes of "Hardcore Henry" do to me?!
I read a critic somewhere said that HARDCORE HENRY reminds him much of "The Raid," and ya know what, he's on point there, our protagonist in this film constantly battling so many villains, all at once, scene after scene, halfway through you start to wonder how and from where on earth do these villains keep on coming, they constantly pop out of nowhere, but then again, that goes towards the fact that most first person shooter video games out there are done in this exact manner where you keep finding yourself having to fight and shoot your way out, non-stop.Is this the future of cinema, is this as virtual reality as it gets for us without our having to wear those big oculus rift gears?
To me, the film looks more like a video game, because Henry is moves so fast and is so good at killing.
I didn't go watch because of the plot, I went, like many others, just for the experience of a 90 minutes of a first person action film.
at first i only watched the movie because i was curious how a Point of view film would turn out so good..
I've been following Ilya Naishullers work as the frontman of Biting Elbows for quite some time now and I was really impressed with those first person shooter style music videos he made with GoPro cameras for two songs of the band.
And, to be honest, the video quality will be better than that of a trash camera strapped to a guy's head who runs around beating people up.In conclusion, I am happier sitting in the theater lobby then watching this movie..
Yet, if you are a film lover, one who loves to see filmmakers push the art to new territory, you should definitely put this fairly high on your to-watch list.Hardcore Henry is an action film that is presented entirely from a 1st person perspective.
If you have played FPS (first person shooter) video games, it will be similar; if you have not, you will watch the movie through the protagonist's eyes and will only see their hands and feet in some scenes.
So this experiment is a large step back from state of the art.The idea of this movie was to make the viewer truly feel like they were in the scene.
If one envisions any number of crude FPS games and how they don't really "feel" like you are the protagonist, this movie fails in exactly the same way.
The movie really is almost exactly like a FPS video game only lots more repetitive, believe it or not.
This is that experience, but in R-rated action/comedy movie form.It's a movie that feels just like a video game - and I mean that in a good way.
Video games, by their nature, immerse you into the experience in a way that movies usually can't, but as a movie that feels like a video game, this movie immerses you within its action like no other.Best actor: Sharlto Copley in this movie plays the funniest, most entertaining, and also most weird & unique character I've seen in any movie in quite some time.
If you can handle playing a video game, you should be able to watch this, no problem.Anyway, watch this movie if you want to have a good time.
Director Ilya Naishuller dominates truly professional camera-work and especially video game players (FirstPersonShooter) are feeling very comfortable watching this.Hardcore offers also humor, and yes, it is a bit hard humor, but it worked for me just fine.
As one of the first films told entirely from first-person perspective, we experience Henry's mysteriously bad and villain-filled day through his eyes.
Unfortunately, with great movies like Dredd and The Raid covering this area, all that's left with Henry is that first-person POV, and eventually you wonder if that gimmick becomes more of a hindrance than an asset, confusing otherwise interesting action through a hectic lack of focus.
Just because your movie looks and feels like a first-person shooter doesn't mean it should have the brain of a pre-teen gamer.
And I can see everyone looking retrospective and say why they did not do movies like this back in the day.I give it 17 for action, 10 for shooting style (pun not intended), 9 for acting and 7 for plot, so in my book that evens out at perfect 10/10..
it was more like watching a lets play video of someone playing a first person game only more boring & pointless.
I don't write reviews or have much of an opinion on anything but this film was that bad I thought I should warn people, I couldn't even watch it all the way through, after 20 minutes of watching I had to skip through it because it was so stupid, boring, pointless, horrible & it wasn't funny or fun not even slightly & there is nothing new about the headache inducing Blair witch shaky camera view.
Bottom line, stop trying to make movies based on video-game experience - it'll never work...
movie experience is an omniscient one, but always without any decision making power.I could go on about the lack of story, poor acting (other than Sharlto Copley, he was great), shaky camera movement (something that was removed from video-games for a very good reason) in order for you to not understand what's going on and add that "cheep" adrenaline feeling to it...But what really bugged me the most is how they wasted a perfectly good and brilliant Tim Roth...Bottom line, this feels like watching your brother play Quake or any other FPS for 2 hours - it's just boring and not the same thing as playing it yourself...A by-standard in the first person.
Half the shots look like a bad video game replay where the person is looking at the ground and you can't see what the hell is going on.
I think I am going to make a movie about me playing a realistic video game with a GOPRO camera attached to my head!
Its target audience is not nearly as broad as most movies tend to be but I feel that that is to its credit; Hardcore Henry embraces the first person shooter genre completely and doesn't look back!
I can't remember the last time I was so entertained for the duration of a feature film.Hardcore Henry is the very essence of explosive slasher craziness, and will literally let you experience it through the protagonist's eyes.
I wasn't too excited about it being filmed like a video game, by this I mean the dialogue scenes.
The villain was mediocre at best and was of little interest.Due to my lack of being able to stay awake I cannot comment on the plot as I don't remember it at all; however it obviously wasn't gripping enough to keep me awake.As I said earlier, it was an interesting concept, well created and I imagine if FPS video games are your passion then you would appreciate this movie more than I did.
The non-stop action, and bloody shootouts never look real, like we're really just watching a boring video game.
At no time does this ever feel cinematic or *big*, nothing makes this feel like it should be seen on the big screen, rather than a computer monitor.After a while, I found myself looking at the dwindling audience more than I watched the movie.
So unless you are keen gamer, who enjoys POV action, with lots of shooting and like no real plot, give this movie a miss.Its gets a rating of 3 based on the stunts and gory being very good.
Other than the fact that the plot is as unsubstantial as an action movie plot can get, the characters' motivations are incredibly under-looked and after a good opening you are just left with a less and less interesting movie.I think the focus was just too much on the gimmick and the filmmakers lost the story on the way, ending up with a film that manages to impress for sure, but does not leave the viewer with any satisfaction.
if you have ever played a fps with bad physics and choppy graphics you know what i mean.While watching this you will experience extended periods of headache because of the badly done First Person View camera, and if you sit through it all you will quickly realize this is 1.5h of your life you will never get back.
i think this movie had a very good potentials to be a great action film , as far as i know the idea of a fully fps is original, as for the story its not that big of a story...but its just an action movie so i don't really mind it, the only thing i hated about it is the extremely amateur and lazy cgi work they did, and over use of cuts, there are also some scenes where they just threw whatever (minigun scene) where made me question weather they were serous about their work.
This movie is entirely shot in POV and about the closest thing to a live action game I ever saw.
The whole film is poorly paced, when there's no action it is boring, some of the other action scenes are filled with jump cuts with bad editing, and the characters weren't good in the movie.
If like me you are sick of watching shaky camera work then avoid this movie by all means.
Filmed for its entire duration on a first person point of view, its loaded with frenetic action (running, parkour, fighting, shoot outs, loads of guns, etc...) almost restlessly, but lacks character development.It flows just like a video game, but even video games have better stories.The idea is original, but the constant camera point of view with so many jumps and bumps and shakes and movement becomes sickening really fast.
Pretty much all done as if your are the person in the film, The entire movie is shot with a helmet cam so it is like your actually there.
There definitely is effort put into story-boarding scenes and filming and editing movie shot in such specific way, but there is also big waste of time creating concept that does not work and leaves you with nothing more then a headache.Characters are bad clichés with bad acting for which you don't care since there is not emotional involvement due to poor story.
On top of that, I was also worried that the first-person action sequences would be the movie's only redeeming quality, meaning that the plot would be almost non-existent and the movie would look like a video game.So to summarize, Hardcore Henry had the potential to either become a ground-breaking film that sets a new bar for great action sequences (kind of like Crank and Cloverfield had a baby !), or be a terrible stomach-churning video game B-movie, as if Uwe Boll directed The Bourne Supremacy!
While I admit that I didn't feel sick at the end of the movie (which is an achievement in itself!), Hardcore Henry definitively suffers from its ridiculous story and dialogs, over-the-top action and cardboard cutout characters who seem to come straight from an 80's video game.
All in all, it felt like I was watching a 90-minute cutscene, which is why I think this film will only appeal to hardcore FPS gamers who just want to see a transposition of their favorite game on the big screen.
Henry isn't alike any human being, he's powerful, fast and it's further convinced to be the hero when mysterious figures (in the many different forms played by the great Shalto Copley) convinces him to find his source and find his wife.What makes this movie a solid roller-coaster ride is it's kinetic energy in action, over the top violence and brutality.
I'm also not a big fan of the way they were filmed.Watching "Hardcore Henry" is like watching a video game you can't play, which is a bit frustrating.
Helping Henry to escape Akan's clutches are the multiple avatars of disabled genius Jimmy (Sharlto Copley).The first person point of view of Hardcore Henry is an undeniably skillful technological feat, the experience made all the more impressive thanks to the incredible derring-do of its lead character, who possesses some serious parkour skills (and nerves of steel), and the efforts of countless stunt guys, whose work is enhanced by some very convincing special effects.I'm guessing that writer/director Ilya Naishuller felt that his film's first person gimmick, unrelenting pace and jaw dropping stunts would be more than enough to keep his audience happy, because he certainly didn't try very hard with the story, with what little plot there is told in a muddled fashion that really isn't worth the effort to unravel.
Without a decent narrative to tie all of the action scenes together, Hardcore Henry eventually proves rather wearisome, despite its escalating 'How the hell did they do that?' mayhem and ultra-violence.The format worked so much better in Naishuller's music video 'Biting Elbows: Bad Motherf***er', where a strong story wasn't a requirement..
It is ironic, because the film is plot less, and the action doesn't really look good either.The gimmick of this film is for the audience to feel like they are in the shoes of the main character.
I suggest you don't watch this film because the only selling point is the new POV shooting style, which alone is not enough to make a good movie..
It was the best video game I never played.going into it, I was very unsure about this new concept of making a movie that looks and feels like a first person shooter, which was exactly what happen.
I thought I would end up disliking the movie because the trailer made it seem like something I would love to play not just watch.But Hardcore Henry was extremely enjoyable.
It was a basic action movie story which allowed the filmmakers to revolutionize the film going experience.
From there, Naishuller felt like creating Hardcore Henry as a love letter to music, film, and video games, mixed with campy elements to prove how he can be a serious filmmaker.
But really, after judging the way Hardcore Henry flaunts action merely for the sake of it, these video game movies, and first-shooter games in general, are hurting our sense of morality and art.
Frantz is a quiet movie with a nice story line and Hardcore Henry was a complete waste of my time and money.
If you choose to see it, just go because you want a fast paced action thriller that feels like a video game.
More than that I believe Hardcore Henry is a mix of very good and very bad scenes, all dedicated to the action genre.The whole movie is stupid, stupid storyline and unrealistic character and character decisions.
After all, the whole film is from the first-person Point of View (POV), so anyone wearing the VR headset would feel almost as if they were experiencing the movie from the main character's perspective.
Hopefully, future filmmakers can take the lessons from this film and create better movies that could use the format to its best advantage.Up until now, the only time you'd see something in a first-person POV is in a video game.