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