Bronson

Bronson (2009)
Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn
Starring Tom Hardy, James Lange, Matt King

Superb film. A startling bio-pic of UK's most violent prisoner 'Mickey Peterson', a bare knuckle street fighter re-named Charles Bronson by his fight promoter played by Matt King. Mickey is sentenced 7 years in jail for robbing a post office at 19yrs of age. Once in Jail he finds himself very much at home, in fact he loves it. It doesn't take long for Mickey's alterego 'Bronson' to take over and cause as much trouble, violence and mayhem as he possibly can. Bronson is also a one man media blitz, his own best publicist, he loves the attention from the newspapers. Bronson's sentence is extended to 30+ years (as a matter of fact he is still imprisoned in the UK).

The film is set in prison but is not about a prison break, its about someone who loves being in prison -this is a cool twist. The story is chock full of violence and madness as Bronson carves his legend in blood and broken bones, disabling and breaking as many prison guards as he can along the way. He is moved from jail to insane asylum to jail throughout the film, the background changes but its always the same landscape. In real life Bronson was moved 120 times, wow.

The story of his time in jail is intercut with a fantasy 'one-man show' stage performance with Bronson in a theatre, in front of a black tie audience. On stage he is the narrator, the ring leader (who wears clown make up at times). He is the bully who's violent reality is pure entertainment for others, shining a bright light on our morbid curiosity. This element attempts to humanize the character by showing his soul as the artist, a man misunderstood, crushed by his own ignorance. Its powerful stuff and it works.

Bronson's arc reveals the man to be an artist and a very good one; his works actually sell in the UK. Bronson's path of destruction and violence leads to a door of artistic expression, this subtext is about someone's path to becoming an artist, reaching self-consciousness. The film is brutal real life portrait wrapped up in fantasy jacket, like a candy coated pill.

Hardy's performance is astounding, ground breaking, he was the best thing in RocknRolla but in this film he is King. I was amazed by his performance, both physically and emotionally and if this doesn't propel him to international stardom I will be surprised. Hardy literally becomes Bronson, it's a physical role equivalent of climbing Everest and he does it with ease. I was shocked that this film was snubbed in the USA, not nominated for any major awards. Perhaps the film is too raw, too brutal, too close to truth or too stylized for a US audience. The influence of Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' permeates this film enhanced by the classic music running throughout .

The film was a breath of fresh air, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Usually when you go in to film with high expectations you're setting yourself up for disappointment, not with this movie. Great stuff.