A young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted b... Read allA young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson.A young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson.
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- 3 wins & 7 nominations total
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Born Michael Peterson (Tom Hardy), in a British suburb in 1952, he first went to prison at the age of 22 for burglarizing a post office. He stole £26.18 and received seven years for the crime, but that sentence was quickly extended as Peterson's infractions inside began to pile up: insubordination, violence, blackmail, and multiple hostage situations. Michael is gradually swallowed up by the prison system, seemingly an environment that suits him best. It is during this time that Michael Petersen, the boy, fades, and 'Charles Bronson,' his superstar alter ego, takes over. Bronson occupies any territory in which he exists by sheer, brute, force. Bronson's first and only instinct is to fight, to capture, and to win. He never makes it to phase two of planning. He has now spent more than three decades in jail, with the majority of those years in solitary confinement, and has become a tabloid sensation as the "most violent prisoner in Britain."
The film is impressively structured and edited, shot in dark tones--illustrating his theme that Bronson is "an artist looking for a canvas," whose search is frequently violent, crazy, and erratic. The director is Nicolas Winding Refn, most famous for the movie "Drive" (2011), and his "Pusher" trilogy of films about Copenhagen's violent, multi-ethnic underworld. Refn himself is something of a rebel, who brings a sharp, surreal, foreign eye to the film.
The film solely rests upon the astonishing performance from an almost unrecognizable Tom Hardy. Bronson never asks for our sympathy for his situation, but somehow, at times, he is able to do just that. Hardy brings a raw physicality to the role, leaping naked about his cell, jumping from tables, and hurling himself into half a dozen guards. Unfortunately, the film never gets under the skin of Bronson and his motivations. It omits other facets of his life including the Muslim woman he married in jail, his conversion to Islam, and the subsequent renouncement of the awards he won for his art and poetry.
Enduring the egotistical ramblings of a psychopath may not sound like a particularly entertaining prospect, but "Bronson" delivers on all fronts. Gripping, visceral, ugly, and beautiful, "Bronson" is simply unforgettable.
The man, which the British press calls 'the most violent prisoner in Britain," is one of the most complex, and highly disturbing characters to be depicted on screen this year. He always wanted to famous, Hardy states with such charisma at the opening of the film, but he can't sing, he can't dance, so he creates an alter ego during his time as a boxer prior to his prison sentence. Though the film is loosely based on the real man and his story, it doesn't matter, Refn treats the film with such artistic integrity and takes chances that most directors hope to accomplish in their careers. The narrative, though over-whelming at times, is unyielding in the manner in which it's told. For the most part however, Tom Hardy's gritty and aggressive performance will go down as one of the best kept secrets of 2009.
In watching the picture, the co-stars are nearly invisible as Hardy takes control of the screen and your attention. He enables the viewer to devote their time and energy with fear of severe consequences in not doing so. Hardy is an incredible talent and not sure if you'll see a more devoted actor to a character on film this year.
Refn's choice of music that fills the scenes with torment, discomfort, and sheer violence is a brilliance shown in his armor. Bronson is pure entertainment, and though it doesn't provide any moral or social significance in the acts of our lives, it's an admiral effort by British cinema.
***/****
After robbing a post office for what can be only described as "chump change," he was given a seven year sentence. Since that sentencing in 1974, Bronson has seen a little over a few months as a free man. He is still in prison to this day.
What Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn gives us is a stylized version of one of the most bizarre and intoxicating stories I've seen in a long time. Bronson, played wonderfully by Tom Hardy, loves what he does. At least that what he wants us to believe. I was never really convinced that Bronson truly enjoyed what he did. Then again, I can't see the pleasure in pummeling prison guards, bare knuckle fighting, fighting dogs, and bringing others close to death. That said, it was something else to watch.
Hardy gives a rock solid performance. He fits the part both physically and mentally. He has the right edge to let us know how intelligent and hostile Charlie Bronson can be. It's hard to imagine playing someone as energized and mentally perturbed as Bronson, who gets his jollies from beating up innocent prison guards and inmates, but Hardy does just that in style. He never falters and gives 100 percent in every scene.
I can see a lot of similarities to A Clockwork Orange. It has similar accents, violent images, an insight into the criminal mind. Things very much associated with Kubrick's masterpiece. Still, Bronson offers something different. It's more theatrical, blending both the real world with a more dramatic and exaggerated story, showing Bronson as a prisoner, a performer, and storyteller.
Bronson is filled with stunning, startling images and a gives us a very original story, the likes of with we have seldom seen or will see. Charlie Bronson is a unique case of a man that nobody will ever truly understand. Whether you like the glorification of criminals or not, it's hard to deny that this film and the people involved doesn't offer great entertainment. I expect more from Hardy and Refn.
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.
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.
Did you know
- TriviaCharles Bronson was not allowed to see the film, but said that if his mother liked it, that would be enough for him. According to Refn, his mother loved it. In 2011 Bronson was finally allowed to see the film and called it "theatrical, creative and brilliant".
- GoofsAt (11:00) The tutor asks Charles "What's the matter, Charlie?" But in this stage of the story Charles Bronson still had his original name Michael Peterson. He had not yet changed his name to Charles Bronson.
- Quotes
Charles Bronson: [Real Life Charles Bronson Quote] How would you feel, waking up in the morning without a window? My window is a steel grid, I 'ave to put my lips against that steel grid and suck in air, that's my morning... 'cause I got no air in my cell. I have to eat, sleep and crap in that room twenty-three hours of a twenty-four hour day. You tell me, what human being deserves that? Apart from the stinking paedophile or a child killer. I don't deserve that, I done nothing on this planet to deserve that. My bed is four inches off the floor, it's a concrete bed, my toilet hasn't even got a seat on it or a lid, and I 'ave to live like this month after month after month, and the way it's looking it's year after year after year. Now is that's right then so be, but let somebody else 'ave a fucking go at it, 'cause I've had twenty-six years of this bollocks and it's time to come out, and I want the jury at my trail to come and see how I'm living. But I'm not living, I'm existing.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Zombieland/A Serious Man/Whip It (2009)
- SoundtracksVa pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves)
from Verdi's "Nabucco"
Written by Giuseppe Verdi
Performed by Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala (as Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan)
Conducted by Lovro von Matacic
Licensed courtesy of EMI Records Limited
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Bronson: el prisionero más peligroso
- Filming locations
- Welbeck Abbey, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, UK(Rampton psychiatric hospital)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $230,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $104,979
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,940
- Oct 11, 2009
- Gross worldwide
- $2,260,712
- Runtime
- 1h 32m(92 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1