In this essay, I find the genre of the film ‘Hardcore Henry’. While there may be more than one interpretation of this film, I present you with my viewpoint and provide information based on my perspective, all while being aware that there are people who will disagree with me. I use evidence from the film, as well as my personal biases based off of other films I have seen, to prove that the genres of this film are both action and a science fiction, while remaining as factual as possible.
To start, it is necessary for a brief synopsis of the film ‘Hardcore Henry’. A man wakes up with missing limbs and amnesia, with no memory of his life. As he lays on a futuristic operating table, robots rebuild him, and a woman introduces herself as his wife. Soon after that, she is kidnapped by an evil villain named ‘Akan’. This leads to Henry’s misadventures while trying to save his wife, and with lots of blood, gore, and first-person action.
At the start of the movie, it is quite apparent this film can be classified as a science fiction film. Henry wakes up on an operating table in a futuristic ship that is flying in the air, hovering above Eastern Europe. As he is laying on the operating table with missing limbs, futuristic robotic arms piece him back together. The machine even brings full functionality back to his arm this is missing. Soon after that, the villain – Akan – breaks into the ship and begins using his telekinetic ability and picking up items and people. A few minutes later in the film, Henry falls from the sky in a futuristic dropod and after a short battle with Akan’s men, he realizes his battery is dying. This leads to him tracking down another man which was also rebuilt and who has recharging capabilities. In order to get these abilities himself, Henry rips out this man’s heart for the recharging device, which leads to the next set of evidence. A man which has been helping Henry throughout his journey repeatedly dies and comes back to life. He typically shows up only a few minutes after he dies, always under a different name, but the same character within the movie. Near the end of the film, you find out these different people he is showing up as are ‘avatars’ that he created to be controlled by him, since he is actually paralyzed and in a wheelchair as a result of Akan’s army. Akan’s army consists of cyborgs, who behave much like zombies. They are out to kill and even attack Henry. Their minds have been completely taken over and Akan tries to release his army of them at the end of the movie, but Henry successfully fights these non-human beings off. He then is forced to fight Akan himself. As Henry prepares to fight Akan, he realizes that he is much weaker, since Akan has special abilities. Akan can levitate as he as fighting, as well as use telekinesis as stated before. This leads to a very sci-fi battle as Henry has many wounds and still fights as hard as ever in an inhuman way.
With the evidence stated above, I personally find it quite compelling, in backing up the fact one of the genres of this movie is that of science fiction. Of course, there will be people who disagree with me, but this is just the first part of my classification of the film ‘Hardcore Henry’. Now, we will go into the classification of this movie under the action genre, which has even more evidence than the latter.
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From the very start of the movie, you are presented with intense action. When Akan arrives on the ship, he begins killing people, and his men are shooting at people. This first scene is intense, because they are there to capture Henry and his wife, making it super action packed. But eventually, Henry gets into a battle with Akan’s men on the ground. He falls off of a bridge onto a van after a short battle with them, featuring a lot of hand-to-hand combat, then makes an improvised attack. He goes into a cargo container as they are surrounding him, and sets a brick on the gas pedal of an old car, which charges out of the container and acts as a distraction for Henry to escape. There is a scene at a strip club, which starts out relatively relaxed, but ends in a gun battle. There are bullets flying left and right and people being used as human shields. Glass bottles are shattering as bullets ricochet across the room, all the while Henry and his friend are trying to survive the oncoming onslaught. This ultimately leads to Henry’s friend dying again; however, he comes back. There is a scene on the road, where Henry is traveling down the road on a motorcycle with his friend, in pursuit of a truck which has his wife in it. Along the way, he is faced with several of Akan’s men, which he takes out with a minigun that is mounted on the side of the motorcycle. The motorcycle then crashes and he goes flying through the air and lands on top of one of the vans, throws a grenade inside and detonates it, ending it. Near the end up the movie, Henry goes to his friend’s compound, which is hidden in an abandoned factory. As he is there with his friend, Akan’s army tracks them down and invades the compound, and there is gunfire left and right. Grenades are blowing up and machine guns are firing back and forth. As you can see, this is quite an action filled movie.
The fact there is so much action in this film leads me to classify the genre as action, in addition to science fiction. There are certainly elements of both, but there are more genres this movie could fit into as well. An example would be adventure or thriller – due to the violent nature of the film and brutality. However, I firmly believe the two most relevant genres to this film are action and science fiction.
Now, I will speak of the directing style. I believe it was the intention of the director to truly make you feel immersed in this movie. Choosing to shoot it from the first-person point of view helped do this to a great extent. The constant action, violence, and gore goes well with this perspective. However, it may not be for everyone, especially for those who get motion sick easily. The director has a reputation for this kind of cinematography though. In the early days of his career, he shot a music video for his band in first person. The was the spiritual predecessor to the film ‘Hardcore Henry’, in that it featured much of the same action and violence, just on a much smaller and shorter scale. The critical success of this music video is what lead to the director pursuing this type of filmmaking. Another thing the director does in this film is incorporate drama in between the action, so it is not just a constant bombardment of nonsense. He tries to make it so there is a reason for the killing and blood spilling taking place, rather than just throwing the film together. Comedy is also incorporated into some scenes, although it may not be obvious to some.
As I wrap up this essay, the two key points I feel are necessary to restate are as follows. The first genre I think applies to this film is that of science fiction, due to the futuristic nature of this movie. The second genre I think applies to this film is action, as there are many action-packed scenes in this flick. However, these are just my opinions and what I think and there will be those who agree and disagree.
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