Charles Bronson, Hollywood's Lone Wolf

I am a big fan of the films of Charles Bronson. He was a very underrated actor. "Charles Bronson, Hollywood's Lone Wolf" is a nice little documentary about his career. I've always been disappointed by the lack of books and/or documentaries about Bronson's career. This movie could have been a little longer and cover more of his films but I don't want to nitpick. I enjoyed this movie and have been telling people to watch it.

I revel at the age and travels of a journalist who thinks a .30 calibre machine gun is an automatic rifle.

There are sporadic insults throughout this documentary and I reject the notion that the writer of this diatribe has a drip, a drop or even a sniff of the actor and performer Charles Bronson was, is and always shall be.

I also take note that Bronson suffered premature dementia up to his demise so why quote him when he talks negatively about himself.

I consider this article insulting, juvenile, judgemental, ageist, politically woke, politically incorrect, slanderous and rather gross.

Charles Bronson and a few great characters made the success of The Great Escape and it wasn't simply down to Steve McQueen, all the cast were brilliant.

Who makes documentaries these days?

Anyone?

It sounds like it.

Even though Charles Bronson turned down or was rejected for the Sergio Leone fims which made Lee Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood and so many more actors famous, Charles was still qick to say he fitted the bill perfectly.

He was never a jaded or faded actor, he lost his wife.

God bless them both X❤

You'll get a short overview of his life and career and lots of clips, but no real commentary on anything other than some dismissive and pithy statements about how he only made trash. Where were the fans to celebrate his image or his friends to talk about him? This was a disappointment.

A general summary of his life and career, details a lot of his fans are already familiar with. It gets strange at Chato's Land when opinions start being thrown in, the narrator calling Charles Bronson a hypocrite for not wanting to appear onscreen with a nude woman when he wore a loincloth for most of the movie. They're not the same thing. Lamenting that some of the muggers in Death Wish were black (some muggers are), calling Bronson a poster boy for "the gun lobby" and immediately cutting to a clip of Donald Trump. It becomes unfocused for a few minutes and is undeniably a product of the time it was produced; false equivalencies, identity politics, and "orange man bad." It would have been nice if they could have included clips from Raid on Entebbe, Act of Vengeance, and Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus to highlight some of the departures from his action vehicles.

What on earth does President Donald Trump have to do with the life and films of Charles Bronson? Well, this is Hollywood, and they can only concentrate on one thing at a time...

Bronson's star-making turn in Death Wish is hardly centered on being there's so much hate for the movie, saying how controversial it was, how violent, and then cutting to Donald Trump... just insane, amazing... Bronson died fifteen-years before Trump even went into politics and lost all his left-wing buddies...

That said... This documentary, narrated by a woman who sounds like she never saw a Bronson flick, also gets several things wrong... He was an architect in Death Wish, not an accountant... And he was not a police chief in The Stone Killer... In fact, two police chiefs (New York and LA) detest his lone wolf character...

The beginning of the documentary, centering on his salad days of playing gruff and amazingly talkative character types is pretty good... However, throughout this the narrator repeats "but stardom alluded him again" as if that were the only reason he acted...

The bridge between character work and semi-stardom overseas is pretty good, but rushed... Also, certain things keep getting repeated, and again, we get to hear how "he almost became a star..."

Which is a mantra that a lot of online journalists repeat again and again about actors who aren't John Wayne or Tom Cruise... It's annoying... And of course they have to criticize the heck out of Cannon Films, which is a great low-budget studio (and this movie automatically played right after a Bronson/Cannon picture)...

Highlights are seeing actual interviews with the man himself... Also, learning about how difficult he was was intriguing... Including straight from Michael Winner, who co-created many of his best roles...

Like Death Wish, one of the great movies of all time now being blamed on Donald Trump... It's just amazing how Hollywood is forced to praise such movie-stars as Charles Bronson... I'm sure they'd like spending more time on John Cusack and George Clooney...

This narrator's stern voice would probably lighten up, and not be so negatively-inclined: like 60% of what could have been an otherwise decent little doc.