Bronson
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
This is a stylised biopic of one of Britain's most notorious prisoners Michael Peterson who renamed himself Charles Bronson during the time he was boxing. Now in his mid 50s, since the age of 22 he has spent all but a few months of his life in prison. His original sentence was given for armed robbery in which only a few quid was taken, but his subsequent violent behaviour in jail has kept him a captive man all these years, a category A prisoner, a man who's been transferred to almost every jail in Britain and for many, many of those years he's been in solitary confinement.
The Danish director is famous for his Pusher trilogy, a series of films about the criminal underworld in Denmark, so his credentials for getting into the mind of someone like Bronson are sound. The way he does this is by having Bronson (played by Tom Hardy) narrating parts of the film from the stage of a small theatre together with dressed up theatre audience. Dressed in black and with white face make up, his manic leering and grinning narration is weird and eerie.
Danny Hansford, one of the producers, has described Bronson as a victim of his own reputation, and indeed this man has effectually served over 30 years many more years than some murderers. Judging from the film which was apparently made with Bronson's co-operation, his larger than life personality and his penchant for playing to an audience with added hostages have not gone down well with the prison authorities so parole has been strictly off the menu.
Refn has made a film that gives Tom Hardy the role of a man who's obviously talented (his art and poems have won prizes), probably a very funny guy too, but whose violent temper and histrionics have led to this long life in a cell. Tom Hardy rises to the part, giving a brilliant larger than life portrait which puts the rest of the film into shadow but you find yourself asking what it is we're being given here - are we being asked to sympathise with years of a man's life wasted? Admittedly true, but without more background you're not drawn in - where did that temper come from? his upbringing seems conventional enough. In some ways the film isn't doing the real Bronson any favours, I'm sure prison life is bloody hard, and things go on in there that we don't care to know about, but by seeing him as a cocksure challenging comedian, we don't get to see the fact that he's been there incident free for the last seven years and is still being refused parole and the effect that serving all these years in solitary has on someones mind.
In a way comparable with a similar film Chopper, and with shades of A Clockwork Orange, the morality of the film is more divisive specially when you do read the occasional lurid tabloid stories about the guy. Interesting, morally challenging, but Hardy's performance fills your head too much!
3.5/5
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My Sister sent it to me in the mail, it is on Divx, so, I just watched it sorry 
