Henry, a newly resurrected cyborg who must save his wife/creator from the clutches of a psychotic tyrant with telekinetic powers, AKAN, and his army of mercenaries. Fighting alongside Henry is Jimmy, who is Henry's only hope to make it through the day. Hardcore Henry takes place over the course of one day, in Moscow, Russia.
- KGM SOSAAugust 16, 2026This was an absolutely awesome movie, it was super charming & fun, the first person POV camera gimmick was incredible & really adds to the immersion, if you’re watching this in a home theatre on a giant screen in the dark with an expensive sound system you’ll feel like you’re actually Henry throughout every second of the film, this movie feels like when you’re in the shower & imagine defeating 100 men in a fight & shootout, it allows you to live that fantasy for 90 minutes. The story also had very little fat around it for the most part, the sci-fi element despite being cool was definitely not even necessary, I’m glad it was there though except for the main villain having telekinetic abilities which was maybe a stretch too far & could have been done without. There’s is a huge twist that actually blew my mind & definitely landed, despite watching A LOT of movies, perhaps a disgusting amount, I still didn’t see it coming even though it felt quite obvious once it was revealed & I felt foolish for not seeing it coming; of course that’s always a welcome outcome, I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I see the major twist in movies coming from a mile away, however the cast member in question really sold it for me. The idea of casting a bunch of parkour skilled stuntmen to actually legitimately do the parkour action in the film was genius & really made the film feel genuine, most of what you see is not CGI (in terms of stunts) but just legit parkour enhanced in no way except for the cameras fisheye lens making jumps appear bigger/further than they really are. The CGI where used is geniusly done too, every single look away from the protagonist’s POV is intentionally done so subtly to hide where CG cuts for example during the road chase on the bikes when the van is real then he looks in the opposite direction tactically for a fraction of a second to make sure there’s no inevitable danger as you would irl then looks back which hides the swap out for a CG van as it explodes. There’s so many subtle examples of this & it really works flawlessly as in a real life shootout with multiple attackers you would have to constantly scan around you. They also integrate tracking VFX flawlessly which is surprisingly some of the trickiest VFX to pull off in high motion shots. Also the way they shot this is unbelievable in so many ways, for one they shot this on a regular GoPro 3 which is a very widely used & affordable camera, the way they rigged it to the actor is interesting too, they made a custom mask headrig as you’d expect but interestingly they rigged the GoPro to the mouth of the lead actor because they found the mouth was a better perspective of the action & other cast then on the top of the head as you’d usually use when skating or surfing, this allowed you to feel more like you as the viewer were the actual character by seeing more. They also shot it at around 48fps (frames per second) rather than the regular 24fps geniusly to assist in tracking VFX & reduce motion blur. The VFX studio also supposedly had to had to spend up to six hours per shot just unwarping the fisheye footage & manually painting frames to stitch the chaotic camera movements together to reduce motion blur even further, they achieved this by using a lens distortion grid plate (because the fisheye style that made the film feel so realistically POV screws with the tracking) which is basically a checkerboard pattern that can straighten the lines in post production which essentially flattens the footage & undistorts it (temporarily makes it not fisheye) so that they could then track all the shots in 3D & add the integrated VFX elements then reapply the distortion of the fisheye lens back to the footage, this is incredibly hard in terms of extra steps but the nice part is that you get a whole other level of integration with your effects where it bends & behaves properly which disarms the viewer & hides the VFX. I really want to shoutout the VFX studios because VFX studios don’t get enough love despite doing the heavy lifting on almost every modern film, so shoutout to VFX Legion & Zero VFX. Having a technical interest in filmmaking I had to talk about this briefly but I strongly urge watching Corridor Crew’s video on this film to really explore VFX or taking a look at the official miniseries released in collaboration by the film & the VFX studios involved, I believe this can be found in the physical release but it’s definitely available online. In terms of acting aside from the praise I have the already given the stuntmen that were cast to pull off the action, I want to specially mention Haley Bennet’s performance which will make what I discussed before about the twist make sense, she really sold it for me & while having relatively modest screen time her performance was fantastic. I’m also glad that Ilya Naishuller is finally getting the recognition he deserves as a director/writer, this film ‘Hardcore Henry’ is a lesser known movie that was largely crowdfunded & is virtually a B-movie however due to his incredible vision & the outcome of this movie he went on to make the ‘Nobody’ movies starring Bob Odenkirk which is obviously mainstream, he absolutely deserves the success that this movie has brought him. In terms of story & overall movie I don’t want to overuse the word masterpiece because this movie in many fields doesn’t even come close to being one, but solely in terms of filmmaking, POV gimmick, originality & the overall viewing experience/immersion, this movie does definitely check that box, not flawless overall but in terms of what it does well (those 3 things) it’s is the best at it, there’s a reason you don’t EVER see the first person POV thing being used in movies like it is in video games, that’s because it’s exceptionally hard to pull off, so well done to Ilya & the entire production crew of this movie, you have made something amazing. Oh lastly, I wanted to share some awesome trivia about one particular shot of this movie the story behind this clip is one of the most famous pieces of trivia from the entire production; There’s an extra who got knocked down in that legendary escalator scene, her name is Uliya Stetsenko, due to this she ended up getting officially credited as "Escalator Face Plant Girl”, she was never meant to be credited, she was an extra that was supposed to move out of the way during the shot. During the intense subway chase, the stuntman playing Henry was sliding at high speed down the center divider of a massive escalator, Stetsenko was a background extra, on the final take she accidentally stepped into the wrong spot & missed her cue to duck out of the way. Henry plowed directly into her at full force, clotheslining her & sending her flying face first down the metal steps. Director Ilya Naishuller later shared on a Reddit AMA that it happened on the very last day of shooting. Watching the playback monitor, he was absolutely terrified that she had severely injured or killed herself on the sharp metal edges of the steps (as you can see it was a NASTY fall). Fortunately Stetsenko was a trained stuntwoman, so she knew exactly how to take a hard fall & safely absorb the impact. Instead of crying out or needing an ambulance, she immediately popped back up, looked at the crew & enthusiastically asked, “Did you get the shot?” (Because she’s just that damn awesome). Because her accidental wipeout fit the brutal chaotic energy of the movie perfectly, Naishuller kept the mistake in the final cut. To honor her incredible toughness, they gave her that hilarious, specific credit at the end of the film. So one last shoutout goes to Uliya Stetsenko, if you’re reading this Uliya, you’re a badass! 9/10 (Amazing / Loved it / Nearly perfect). I can’t recommend watching this enough, especially if you’re into action movies, B-movies, experimental films, technical filmmaking, video games, sci-fi or just generally want to be immersed into a film in a way you never have experienced before.
- ShaydeknightJuly 26, 2026Watching Hardcore Henry is rather like watching someone else play through a first-person shooter, which is very much the point. There isn't a great deal of plot depth or thematic focus on offer, here. The real star of the show is the perspective itself, the experiment of shooting an entire feature film from the first-person point of view. I liked it rather more than I expected to, though I don't think I'd ever want to sit through another film built the same way. It's too disorienting for regular consumption. That said, this is a far more mass-market effort than most experimental cinema, and I'd argue the film draws directly on work done by earlier experimental filmmakers while doing something most audiences have never encountered before. Lady in the Lake, from 1947, was shot entirely in the first-person perspective, as was the more recent Maniac, from 2012. Hardcore Henry, however, fuses that camera style with explosive, sustained action in a genuinely new way. Many of the scenes were disorienting and difficult to watch, and I noticed my brain doing something rather interesting in response: I began instinctively imagining how each scene would look pulled back to a mid-distance, third-person view. It felt like a natural reaction to the almost claustrophobic sensation of experiencing everything strictly through the character's eyes, with no wider frame to orient oneself. There were also a handful of gross moments that struck me as unnecessary, though I understand why they were included. They lent the film a queasy, visceral sense of a body under siege, as though the camera itself were flinching, which suits a story about a man stitched back together and immediately sent out to be broken again. Some of the action takes were absolutely fantastic, particularly a chase sequence involving motorcycles. The film's one-take conceit really earned its keep there, and the spectacle was thoroughly engrossing. Sharlto Copley does an outstanding job, especially considering he plays multiple roles throughout. Without spoiling anything, there are scenes in which he shifts from character to character and the transitions are handled superbly. This isn't the old split-screen trick, with the same actor standing on two sides of a set. It's genuinely accomplished technical camera work, and his performance stays credible and grounded throughout, no matter how often the film asks him to change identity beneath it. Danila Kozlovsky also deserves credit for his work as the villain. He comes across as superbly unlikeable, and by the film's end, I was strongly desirous of his demise, which I have no doubt is exactly the reaction the director was after. All in all, a good film, and one I'm glad to have experienced, but it isn't something I feel any need to see more of.
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Hardcore Henry was released on September 12, 2015.
Hardcore Henry was directed by Ilya Naishuller.
Hardcore Henry has a runtime of 1h 36m.
Hardcore Henry was produced by Inga Vainshtein Smith, Timur Bekmambetov, Ilya Naishuller, Ekaterina Kononenko.
Henry, a newly resurrected cyborg who must save his wife/creator from the clutches of a psychotic tyrant with telekinetic powers, AKAN, and his army of mercenaries. Fighting alongside Henry is Jimmy, who is Henry's only hope to make it through the day. Hardcore Henry takes place over the course of one day, in Moscow, Russia.
The key characters in Hardcore Henry are Henry / Slick Dmitry (Andrey Dementyev), Jimmy (Sharlto Copley), Akan (Danila Kozlovsky).
Hardcore Henry is rated R.
Hardcore Henry is an Action, Adventure, Science Fiction film.
Hardcore Henry has an audience rating of 5.5 out of 10.
Hardcore Henry had a budget of $2M.
Hardcore Henry has made $16.8M at the box office.