Bronson

This film has much to recommend it and its reputation will probably go up in time as more people see it. It looks fantastic and the performance by Tom Hardy is compelling. There is no attempt to sentimentalise this character or depict him as a victim. The dialogue is taut and authentic and contains many lines which may, in time, become as familiar as those in say Get Carter. My favourite is "you just p***ed on a gypsy in the middle of nowhere. Its hardly the hot ticket."

My slight problem is that the film sometimes tries too hard to impress. This is most noticeable during the long (literally) operatic scenes. These scenes become especially prevalent towards the end, when Wagnerian music accompanies Bronson's drawings (with an ill-fitting cartoon sequence) and the warden slow-mo strolling down the corridor. I did not see what the music added here. In the violent climax, the music actually detracted from the physicality of the scene.

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!

Bronson is the dramatized story of Charlie Bronson. Not the actor from Death Wish, The Great Escape, and The Dirty Dozen. This is the story of England's most violent prisoner. Born Michael Peterson, he quickly realized that he wanted to make a name for himself. It is unclear why he chose the path he did. He had a normal upbringing, a nice home, good parents, yet he just liked to fight. And he was good at it.

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.

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.

In one of the most frightening and downright crazy lead turns of the year, Tom Hardy ignites the screen in the British independent film, Bronson. Based on the unbelievable true story and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, the at times bizarre film tells the story of Michael Peterson, played by Hardy, who robs a post office in 1974, to only get 26 pounds out of the deal, and is sentenced to four years in prison. A four year stay has turned into a thirty-four year prison term, thirty of which has been spent in solitary confinement.

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.

***/****