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Recap / Hardcore Henry

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A boy watches as a group of bullies destroy his favorite toy robot. An older man chases the bullies off before turning to him and quietly saying: "...you...little...pussy."

Henry awakens in a laboratory, his left arm and leg missing, his only company being a young woman named Estelle. Estelle, who had brought Henry back from the dead as a cyborg and gives him a new prosthetic leg and arm, explains that they are married and missed him. She guides him to a nearby room where she and her co-workers arrange to have a voice module installed. Before Henry ever gets the chance to speak, however, the lab is infiltrated by mercenaries led by Akan, a psychopathic psychokineticist who murders Estelle's co-workers and prepares to do the same to her and Henry. Estelle manages to help Henry slip away from his attackers and reach the escape pods of the flying laboratory. With only one pod left, Henry and Estelle step inside and escape into the streets of Moscow below.

After a rough landing on a freeway, Henry and Estelle find themselves surrounded by Akan's mercenaries, led by his lieutenant Yuri. Yuri abducts Estelle and sends Henry falling onto a parking lot below. Thankfully, a mysterious man named Jimmy saves Henry. Jimmy, who knows Henry is a cyborg, explains that his cybernetic implants are running low on power and need to be recharged, or else he will die. Before they get the chance to recharge his body, however, crooked cops on Akan's payroll kill Jimmy and force Henry to flee.

While riding a bus to evade his pursuers, Henry is approached by another man who introduces himself as "Jimmy", albeit appearing as a hobo. After painfully extracting a tracking chip from Henry's prosthetic arm, Jimmy explains that he needs to seek out a man named "Slick Dimitri", a man in Akan's employ, and remove a "charge pump" from his heart to power his implants. After handing Henry a phone with GPS to track down Dimitri, the bus is attacked by a flamethrower-wielding soldier of Akan's. Jimmy is killed again, and Henry makes his escape.

Henry tracks down Dimitri and, after a chase through Moscow's streets, captures him. As Dimitri offers to reveal information on Jimmy, however, a sniper blows his head off. While hiding from the sniper, Henry takes the charge pump from Dimitri's body and escapes.

Henry receives a call from Jimmy, directing him to a brothel. Inside, Henry meets with Jimmy - this time, a sex-addicted coke fiend. As Henry's implants begin to shut down, however, Jimmy realizes he can't install the pump while high off his rocker, and walks into the back of the room. Another Jimmy - a shy, well dressed nerd - comes out and installs the pump, recharging Henry's implants. Shortly afterwards, however, Akan's mercs swarm the brothel. Henry fights his way through the hired guns, only to run into Akan, who taunts Henry with having kidnapped Estelle before tossing him down a trash chute, along with the dead body of Jimmy the coke fiend.

In the parking lot outside the brothel, Henry finds Jimmy once more - this time, a hippy biker with a love of ganja. After interrogating one of Akan's mooks, he learns that Estelle is being transported in a motor convoy. Along with two well-armed dominatrices from the brothel, Henry and Jimmy intercept the convoy. One of the dominatrices are run down, but Henry manages to reunite with Estelle. The happy reunion is cut short, however, by Akan and Yuri, the latter kidnapping Estelle again while the former knocks Henry out with a baseball bat.

Henry regains consciousness as Akan's hirelings drag him into the woods to bury, but he is saved by Jimmy and the surviving dominatrix. Jimmy repairs Henry, only for him and the dominatrix to die from a tank's shelling. Henry manages to kill off the tank's crew with the dominatrix's katana and drives off a helicopter with more soldiers. He then receives further instructions to rendezvous with Jimmy.

After a failed attempt to hasten the journey on horseback, Henry meets with Jimmy - now, a gruff sniper in a ghillie suit - and make their way to Jimmy's laboratory (killing some crooked cops attempting to rape a woman along the way). As Jimmy walks into the back, a video is played showing a younger Jimmy, once working as a scientist for Akan on the first generation of cyborg supersoldiers to help Akan take over the world. Jimmy had the cyborgs heavily lobotomized to prevent them from suffering needless distractions, but this had the unfortunate effect of rendering them unable to do anything but flail around like zombies. Akan punished Jimmy for his failure by breaking his spine.

At that point, the real Jimmy approaches Henry - a paraplegic scientist with a burning desire for revenge. All of the other Jimmies Henry met were actually cloned cyborg bodies that the real Jimmy controlled from his wheelchair remotely.

While running a diagnostic on Henry's body, however, Jimmy discovers that Henry had been broadcasting everything he saw to Akan, and mercenaries were on their way to his lab at that very moment. Jimmy believes Henry betrayed him, but Henry professes his innocence. After helping Jimmy calm down, the two decide to work together to fight their way out, destroying the lab and killing Yuri along the way, before making their way to Akan's headquarters. Jimmy sacrifices some of his remote bodies to help them escape, leaving him with only his WWII-era general body and his nerd body.

At Akan's HQ, soldiers attack Jimmy and Henry. The nerdy Jimmy sacrifices himself so Henry, Jimmy, and Jimmy's WWII era body can get into an elevator that would lead them to Akan. Unfortunately, the real Jimmy got shrapnel embedded in his neck in the fighting, and he was bleeding out. With time running out, Jimmy uses his remaining remote body to remove a memory block from Henry's mind, and thanks him for being a friend to him.

With Jimmy dead, Henry makes his way to a room with a monitor, where Akan reveals that he had created an army of cyborgs, each given memories based off of Henry's experiences, each driven to protect their "wife" Estelle, and each more deadly thanks to a more powerful energy cell. One such cyborg attacks Henry, but Henry manages to kill him and steal his energy cell, replacing his old battery with it to give himself a boost.

Henry faces off against the other cyborgs on the rooftop, killing them all in the resulting melee. As the last cyborg dies, however, Akan arrives and incapacitates Henry. Estelle then arrives, revealing herself to be Akan's lover and willing assistant who manipulated Henry to field-test him and provide the memories to program Akan's cyborg army.

As the two leave Henry for dead, Henry's memory of bullies destroying his toy robot come back to him. After chasing off the bullies, an older man, his father, turned to him and said: "...you...little...pussy". He explains that when he was a child, his father would call him a "pussy" when he got picked on. He, however, loved Henry and promised never to call him anything but his name, but asks him if he is simply going to lie there and take it, or stand and fight back.

Henry comes to and gets his second wind. He fights Akan, but this time manages to overpower him before pulling out one of his own eyes, wrapping the optic nerve cable around Akan's head, and cutting it off at the jaw. He then leaps onto the helicopter Akan was planning to escape on with Estelle as it departs, and presents Akan's severed head to Estelle. Estelle lashes out, shooting at Henry, only to take a bullet that ricochets off of Henry's cybernetic hand.

Estelle stumbles out of the helicopter door, but grabs onto the edge and, in the hopes of manipulating Henry, begs him to listen to his heart.

Henry takes Estelle's advice and listens to his heart. His heart tells him to slam the door on her fingers, dropping the evil bitch to her doom.

Afterwards, Henry receives a voicemail from Jimmy, who asks him to do one more thing for him...

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