Hardcore Henry
Short description
Hardcore Henry is an action film shot almost entirely from a first-person perspective, so the viewer sees the events through the eyes of its central character. Henry wakes in a Moscow laboratory where his wife Estelle, a scientist, has brought him back as a cyborg. He barely has time to grasp what has happened before Akan, a warlord with telekinetic abilities and a private army, seizes Estelle. Henry sets out across the city to get her back, and along the way he meets the unpredictable Jimmy, whose motives stay unclear. The story unfolds within a single day.
The film was directed by Ilya Naishuller, who also wrote the screenplay and produced it with Timur Bekmambetov and Ekaterina Kononenko. It was Naishuller's first feature and the earliest of the three films he has directed, ahead of Nobody and Heads of State. Andrey Dementyev plays Henry, with Sharlto Copley as Jimmy, Danila Kozlovsky as Akan, Haley Bennett as Estelle, Tim Roth as Henry's father and Svetlana Ustinova as Olga.
Produced across Russia, China and the United States on a budget of 2 million US dollars, the film returned roughly 17 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from about 108,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 out of 10 from some 2,771 votes. A critics' rating of 5.6 out of 10 from 146 reviews places it below both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- They struggled for a long time to find an actor for the role of the villain; as a result, they stuck with the original candidate, Danila Kozlovsky.
- A camera stabilization technology for GoPro – Adventure Mask – was specifically developed for the film.
- To change Danila Kozlovsky's eye color, makeup artists used lenses twice as thick as normal ones.
- The film takes place over the course of one day.
- In the scene where Henry and Dmitry run across the roof of the Pushkin Bridge arch, Valyaev and Dementyev filmed without safety harnesses due to the technical impossibility of using them.
- In most cases, the punches to the face received by Henry's opponents were real, as they were filmed from very close range. During the fight scene between Henry and Sly Dmitry, Valyaev couldn't simulate hitting Dementiev's face, so the latter asked to be hit for real. Danila Kozlovsky similarly endured real punches in several scenes of the film.
- Similar to the films 'John Wick' and 'Point Break,' the film was promoted through an advertising campaign in the Payday 2 video game, consisting of two themed heists and Jimmy as a playable character. As a reference to this, the film features Jimmy's mask from the game (in the dresser where Henry takes the pistols in the strip club), as well as a poster for the game (in the rastaman's apartment, where Henry ends up).
- Henry first gets on trolleybus number 37, then jumps out of Ikarus bus number 117 a minute later, completely on fire.
- According to Ilya Naishuller, Timur Bekmambetov's offer to collaborate came to him through a social network.
- The role of Henry was played by 13 people. For most of the film, the camera was carried by Andrey Dementyev and Sergey Valyaev. Ilya Naishuller filmed the calmer scenes himself. In the stunt scenes, stunt performers acted as camera operators.
- The role of the tank crewman, played by Kirill Serebrennikov, could have been performed by Dmitry Puchkov.
- In the scenes where Danila Kozlovsky and Charlto Copley brought their faces close to Henry's, Valyaev and Dementiev, on Copley's advice, wore black glasses to avoid distracting the actors with involuntary facial expressions.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
