Bronson

Tom Hardy and Nicholas Winding Refn are the stars of the show here, taking the story of 'Britain's most violent prisoner' and twisting it into an explosion of style.

Tom Hardy plays Michael Peterson who was initially incarcerated for 7 years after robbing a Post Office but this sentence turned into a 34 year stretch after numerous cases of violence in prison. Of these 34 years 30 were spent in solitary confinement. In his short period outside he assumed the fighting name of Charles Bronson after the Death Wish star. It is his alter ego which dominates the film.

Hardy is magnificent, prowling around people almost growling, a hulking, brooding, unpredictable beast who almost doesn't care what happens to him, preferring gaol where his is someone to the outside where he is no-one.

Many reviewers have been troubled by the lack of insight into the character of Bronson, however this is unsurprising as the story itself is narrated by Bronson himself, cutting back to a fantasy audience where he parades in varying levels of makeup, the star of his own show.

Refn handles this material with aplomb, filling it with tracks and pans, the occasional slice of slow motion, an interesting and varied colour palate and impeccable taste in music. Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange have been mentioned in almost every review, but there are clear influences of Bertolucci, perhaps mostly The Conformist in its detached style and use of colour.

By the time the film ends we are unsure who to feel sorry for, lost in a world of hard lines and constant violence. A very interesting film that marks out Hardy and Refn as exciting talents in modern cinema.

Can you really produce a biopic about the theatrical brutality of Britain's most dangerous prisoner and not incite comparisons to Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange?" The trailer for Nicholas Winding Refn's "Bronson" spouts the likeness triumphantly with a quote attributed to Damien McSorley for the publication, "Zoo." Surely Kubrick is a flattering filmmaker to have your humble work compared to, though like American director Wes Anderson, who borrows all the style of the man but none of the content, "Bronson" is a film with an air of grandiosity and very little in the way of actual story. Kubrick's film, based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, has a Dickensian plot that doubles back on characters and scenarios established in the first act, leaving nothing unchanged by the end of the third. It's a comparison under which "Bronson" unfavorably suffers: well directed, impeccably performed, but completely devoid of structure.

I don't mean to undersell the above compliments, however. Tom Hardy as lowly criminal Michael Peterson and his imprisoned superstar alter ego Charles Bronson, displays a remarkable, feral intensity in the role, spitting meaty, cockney chunks of dialogue with a truly disquieting voracity. And Hardy makes a perfect match for Refn: both share a larger- than-life approach to their craft. The director's visual audacity is never more sublimely paired with Hardy's performance than during Bronson's intermittent narrations; snippets of a surreal one-man stage show for some great, unseen audience. The cutaways recall the feel of Alex's presentation following the successful administration of the ludovico technique in "Clockwork Orange." Swooping crane and sweeping dolly shots, along with some fantastic locations, also evoke Kubrick's directorial sentiments, as does the more obvious accompaniment of classical score to key sequences.

Unfortunately, the failure of "Bronson" is not only that there's very little dramatically to be done with a man who spends the better part of his life in solitary confinement, but that beyond a vague notoriety, Peterson's ultimate goal is never particularly clear. The ending of the film is startling in its abruptness given that the scene seems interchangeable with any number of the fights Bronson picks over the course of the film. It doesn't feel a particularly epic brawl, and by that point, the tedium of Bronson's outbursts, battles, and increasingly severe punishments had worn me (though it could maybe be called a statement on the nature of desensitizing cinema--in that respect a reverse "Clockwork Orange") into a sleepy passivity.

The film is nevertheless a step the right direction for the usually-schlocky and hyper- masculine Refn, but "Bronson" still wants for the substantiality that makes great films great films. It isn't likely to inspire any further meditation on its subject beyond perhaps provoking a curiosity about the man himself in those intrigued but unsatisfied with the screenplay's frugal allocation of hard data and social context. But despite the film's inability to make clear its greater thematic intent, I don't think "Bronson" is a perversely violent film or that it exists solely as a fetishistic idol to counterculture, as some will likely label it, and have labeled Kubrick's masterpiece. Its beautiful cinematography (courtesy Larry Smith, interestingly enough, the lighting cameraman for Kubick's own "Eyes Wide Shut") and stellar lead may make it a worthwhile rental next year, but as it stands, "Bronson" is a precautionary tale. It's a film that has everything going for it except the the thing that matters most: its story. And you don't need to be Stanley Kubrick to figure that out.

This is a fantastic depiction of Charles Bronson, born Michael Peterson, Britain's most infamous and notorious prisoner. Director Nicholas Winding Refn invites us into Bronson's imagination, with parts of the film shot from the perspective of him being on stage in front of an adoring audience. The rest of the film is a dramatization of Bronson's life and times in prison.

Bronson was initially incarcerated for seven years for the robbery of a post office where he stole £26.18. However he has spent 34 years in prison and psychiatric wards so far, and is still there, spending 30 of them in solitary confinement. He has been involved in fighting, brawls and hostage taking which led to his increased sentence, and he seems to enjoy it. No lives have been lost.

This is an excellent performance from Tom Hardy –funny, thoroughly engaging and intense. He physically transformed himself for this role and obviously studied Bronson vigorously to accurately portray his mannerisms.

A thoroughly compelling film. A must see!

Saw this the other day at the Sydney Film Festival.

I didn't know much about Bronson before the film, other than what I read on Wikipedia and after walking out of the cinema, I can't say I know any more about the man other than his inability to conform and his reliance on violence and abuse to deal with most situations.

Unlike Korean movie Breathless which also screened at the festival and focused on violence but at least gave you an idea as to why the main character was so disturbed and messed up. Bronson doesn't give you any answers other than he was simply born that way, despite loving parents. His inability to deal with society starting as early as his school years.

What I did enjoy was Hardy's performance. Sure to be compared to Bana's Chopper (which I think was far better - but I am an Aussie and therefore biased) and also A Clockwork Orange. Hardy is impressive as the hulking and impulsive brute. He occasionally shows us Bronson's vulnerable side but mostly it's about the rage that drives him from one prison to another.

The prison system and Brit government are seemingly helpless to come up with solutions at dealing with Bronson's violence. The man himself also seems way beyond rehabilitation. That would be a big understatement.

I thought it was a shame that Bronson didn't get into boxing or some other type of physical sport like Rugby league when he was younger as it might have given him an outlet for his anger.

Anyways, it's ultimately pretty grim viewing but certainly packs a punch (no pun intended). I would have like to see Winding Refn offer us a little more insight into the man.

The real-life story of Britain's toughest prisoner, and not a film I would choose to watch – except when it comes to the casting of the lead actor. Tom Hardy, who I've noticed cropping up more and more in recent years, gives a tour-de-force performance as a psychotic inmate and man to whom violence is a way of life. His eerie voice, hulking frame and dead eyes all combine perfectly to make him one of cinema's most memorable villains in recent years, and with most of the scenes consisting of him speaking monologues in solitary cells, the film belongs to him.

Which is good, because the story isn't up to much. It's a loose dramatisation of the life of Michael Peterson, a man who robbed a post office and ended up becoming Charles Bronson, one of the most famous convicts of all time. To be honest, the events aren't all that interesting, and in other hands the continuous brawls with prison officers could become repetitive. Thank Heaven then for the presence of Nicolas Winding Refn (VALHALLA RISING) as director. This is a guy who understands cinema and the beauty of cinema, and he makes the film intensely watchable as a result. BRONSON looks a thing of beauty, even if that beauty is stark, brutal and minimalistic.