Hardcore Henry a roller-coaster ride for star Sharlto Copley

4 April, 2016 - 07:09

Hardcore Henry blasted out of the Toronto International Film Festival last September with a punk-rock cockiness, a Midnight Madness award from Toronto audiences and a $10 million deal that guaranteed this low-budget rocket ship a wide distribution deal. By Bruce Kirkland

That day has now come: Hardcore Henry debuts in theatres on Friday. The film that was just called Hardcore at Toronto also has new life and a more refined look after being supercharged with finishing money from STX Entertainment in Burbank. This infusion of funds gave young Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller, and his team of international producers, the chance to polish their uniquely funny, violent, crazed, kinetic and hugely entertaining action film. The results are spectacular.

For me, says Sharlto Copley, the film's star and co-executive producer, this film is a combination between a roller-coaster ride, a movie, a video game and a rock concert!

A big chunk of the credit for getting Hardcore Henry made goes to Copley, a South African actor-producer whom you may know from the excellent science-fiction film District 9. Copley - who empowered South African-Canadian filmmakers Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell to make their anti-racism opus - starred as the Afrikaner bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe. He is the man who sympathizes deeply with the aliens and finds himself accidentally transforming into one, in the tradition of The Fly, after being infected with their DNA.

Hardcore Henry lacks that film's socio-political agenda, but it has energy to burn. It is a point-of-view film seen entirely through the eyes of Henry - a mute character whose face we see for mere seconds at the end. Instead, as Henry gradually does, we learn he is a cyber-soldier who is part human, part machine, and on the run from menacing forces. The body count in the non-stop chase is staggering. But the humour, especially coming from the many incarnations of Copley's charismatic character Jimmy, breathes giddy life into the crazy carnage.

The actual driving force behind this film, for me, was creating a cinema experience for an audience, Copley explains in an interview at the Burbank offices of STX Entertainment. This feels like some sort of an opportunity to do a bridge between films and virtual reality.

Helping Naishuller, as part of a large producing team that also included Russian-American filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov of Night Watch and Day Watch fame, was a thrill for Copley.

And he cared not at all that he was signing on for a very foreign experience. Hardcore Henry was not just made-in-Moscow - an awkward place to shoot - but it was also to be a rarity as a Russian-American co-production. This meant communication back and forth from Moscow to Los Angeles introduced more challenges.

Making a POV movie was the foreign element, in a big way, Copley says, discounting the international logistics as a problem. I came on as a producer. I came on early, before there was even a script. So there was actually an enormous parallel between District 9 and my experience on this film.

The trigger to get involved was actually a POV video that Naishuller shot in Russia. Bad Motherf---er became an Internet sensation, inspiring Bekmambetov to contact Naishuller, encouraging him to make a feature film with the same frenetic style. Copley also watched the now infamous video - 25 times in a row on a loop.

As for the title, which Copley now prefers to call BMF, he admits with a grin: I wish he hadn't called it that, now that I have to do so much normal' press and actually say that. He didn't know what was coming at the time or he definitely wouldn't have used it!

Regardless, Copley was impressed, as were millions of people who helped make BMF one of the most watched videos of its kind.

There was a harder edge to it, the 42-year-old Copley says, recalling that he thought to himself: These are crazy, hard-edged bastards just pushing the envelope of what they've seen the West do. In a certain way, it was very similar to what happened in South Africa. We're the first generation to grow up with media. In South Africa, we didn't have television until 1976. I was that first generation.

As a result, South Africa suddenly created a generation of young talents such a Blomkamp. The same is now happening in Russia, with a generation that has grown up with more artistic freedoms since the end of the Soviet Union. I felt that, as it proved to be true when I was in Russia, that there are a lot of talented, creative young people.

On Hardcore Henry, Copley fed off their energy. There was just this incredible drive on this film, as unbelievably difficult as it was sometimes! They were just so passionate and so much wanting to show the world what they could do.

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