"Harry Brown" is the movie "Gran Torino" would have been if Larry Clark had directed it. Or, apparently, if Daniel Barber had directed it. Don't yet know the name? It's because "Harry Brown" is Barber's directorial feature debut. And "tour de force" doesn't begin to cover it.

Like "Gran Torino", "Harry Brown" tells the story of a recently widowed war veteran who has watched his neighborhood crumble around him and feels a personal responsibility to do something about the violence he witnesses on a daily basis. Both men's actions are catalyzed by friendship: Torino's Walt wants to protect his neighbor while Harry wants to avenge the brutal murder of his best (and only) friend. But this is where the similarities end. "Harry Brown" makes the elegiac melodrama of "Gran Torino" feel like a Frank Capra flick. Apparently the Korean War didn't hold a candle to the war in Northern Ireland because, in short, Harry could kick Walt's ass (excuse me...arse. This is Britain!) around the block. Drenched in violence, profanity, explicit drug use, and I-can't-believe-I-just-saw-that brutality, "Harry Brown" is a breathless cinematic experience that still manages to have a moral center and (fancy that) something to say. I don't think you'll be wondering who Daniel Barber is again.

"Harry Brown" will be playing at the Kentucky Theatre through Thursday, August 12. Go see it.

-Lucy Jones