Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Chopper vs. Bronson

Tom Hardy is the new hot shit, right?  He was the sole source of humor in Inception, he was perfectly repressed in Warrior and he will, I assume, be expertly covert in the upcoming Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  And of course, Bane.

When people start talking about Hardy, I always steer them to the film that made him a breakout star, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson.  I’ll talk about Bronson for a little while, about its stylized violence and its charismatic yet clinically insane titular character; and after a while, I realize that I should’ve been talking about a similar, but far better, film the whole time.

On paper, Chopper and Bronson are the exact same movie, made eight years apart.  Both Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read and Michael Peterson (a.k.a Charles Bronson) were real-life criminals who spent more time in prison than out.  Both were fiercely charming, sadistically violent, lethally street smart, and very much insane.

But while Rehn is more focused on showing how amusingly batshit crazy his Bronson is, Andrew Dominik added another level to his Chopper.  He gave his man a soul.

I'm just a bloody normal bloke. A normal bloke who likes a bit of torture.

Released briefly in New York and L.A. in mid 2001, before fading to single copy-only purgatory on a hidden shelf at your local Blockbuster, Chopper was (and still is) a hidden phenomenon waiting to be discovered.

When we meet Chopper (played with ferocious excellence by then nobody Eric Bana), he is hatching a half ass plan to kill all of his enemies (i.e. pretty much everyone) in the Australian prison he occupies.  If it sounds absurd, that’s because it is.  Dominik and Bana know this, and the way they handle the (mostly) true material is breathtaking.

Everything Chopper says and does, you see, is done with wild charisma.  Whether he’s thrusting a shank into a prisoner’s face a dozen times, or being stabbed repeatedly by his cell mate, or chopping his own ears off, or firing a gun in a crowded nightclub; it’s all done with a sense of deranged joy.  The actions themselves aren’t necessarily funny (unless you have a sick sense of humor – ding ding), but the fallout is nothing short of hilarious.

Bana as Chopper/Chopper as Chopper
Eric Bana, if I haven’t been clear, is revelatory in the lead role.  Packing on a good 30 pounds and slathered in hundreds of tattoos, Bana transforms himself into Chopper.  It’s the type of performance that, quite frankly, makes award competitions irrelevant.  Bana may have not been nominated for anything, but he got the attention of Ridley Scott, who cast him in Black Hawk Down, which led to The Hulk, which led to Munich, and so on.

And despite the fact that Bana steals the show, Chopper is far from a one trick pony.  Because the film was made for next to nothing, its composition is horrible.  It is grainy and dark with a fluctuating soundtrack.  All of this, however, lends itself perfectly to the film.  The look of the film is raw, but so is the material.  If you saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, then you know Andrew Dominik knows his shit.  The raw talent of he and his Chopper cast and crew is wildly compelling.

Inside, I'm somebody nobody wants to fuck with, do you understand? I am Charlie Bronson, I am Britain's most violent prisoner. 

Bronson is similar in story in that it tells the tale of a violent prisoner who took more pleasure in hurting others than he probably did from anything else.  The real Michael Peterson (who later took on the fight name, Charles Bronson) was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbery, but has only spent a handful of days out of jail since being incarcerated. 

As Tom Hardy informs us in the film, Bronson loved being an inside man.  He loved being able to hone his fighting skills on the guards that tried to restore order.  Kidnapping guards, hurting himself, refusing to eat; no gimmick was spared to make way for a little bit of beating.

I first saw Bronson at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and remember being utterly enthralled.  You had this jacked up dude beating the shit out of anything within sight, usually cut in slow motion to electronica music.  It was coolest prison movie I’d seen since, well, Chopper.
Hardy as Bronson/Bronson as Bronson
Watching it now, having seen Refn’s far superior Drive, I’m a little less impressed.  A lot less impressed, actually.

Its sense of humor is still intact, and Hardy is still demonically possessed in all the best ways, but there’s really nothing to the film.  There’s fighting and blood and punching and knives and bare asses and talking and fighting and blood and end credits.  The film is 92 minutes but its repetitiveness makes it feel double that.  If you’re a fan of Drive, you’ll enjoy seeing the makings of Refn’s genius.  Otherwise, Bronson is a film that, aside from its violence, is as weightless as air.

Here's a bloke, sitting in a cell, who can't spell, and he's written a best-seller. It's sold two hundred and fifty thousand copies. And it's still selling. And he's writing another one. And I can't even spell. I'm semi-bloody-illiterate. 

Which brings me to my final point.  Bronson is all style, no substance, whereas Chopper is high style, higher substance.  You may laugh with your friends about all the crazy shit Chopper does, but when you stop and actually think about it, you’ll find yourself staring off at a blank wall, alone with your thoughts, much like the man himself.  Chopper: A, Bronson: B-

20 comments:

  1. wait, that's Eric Bana?

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  2. Ha, yup. Crazy huh? Wait til you see the movie.

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  3. Have you seen the old Eric Bana comedy tv show he had in Australia?
    It's absurd.

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  4. Haven't seen it, heard of it though. It was because of that show that the real Chopper reccommended Bana to Dominik. Weird shit.

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  5. it's on youtube, just search "full frontal eric bana"

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  6. Haven't seen either of these, and I need to. No excuse for not seeing Bronson - it's on Netflix Instant.

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  7. I've wanted to see the CHOPPER movie ever since a hilarious standup comedy parody of Mark Read started dominating our comedy screens here in New Zealand. The film looks good. Not at all interested in BRONSON though.

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  8. @Robert, yeah, Chopper is a little harder to get a hold of. Although I have seen it in those huge $5 DVD bins at Wal-Mart...

    @Tyler, do you have a link for this stand up? Also, yeah, I think you can do without Bronson.

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  9. I sent my review of Bronson into the LAMB, but I reviewed it earlier in the year - and enjoyed it. I watched it again last night and came to the same conclusions as you. Though I still thought it was pretty demented (and often very funny), there really isn't much to it. Less than I remember anyway. But, hats off to Nicholas Winding Refn for trying something different with a biopic.

    As for Chopper, I saw it about 5 years ago and thought it was fantastic. Bana is insanely good - and this is well before he was recognised in Hollywood. There is much more emotional impact, too. That last shot says it all, I think.

    Nice work, Alex!

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  10. Thanks! Completely agree about the last shot in Chopper. When I first saw it, I was like "...that's lame." But then I actually thought about it. Heavy stuff.

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  11. @Alex: Just search "Heath Franklin as Chopper" on YouTube and you'll get heaps of results which you can sift through.

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  12. Nice. Gonna watch it when I get home.

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  13. Cannot believe what a pile of crap bronson was.They are totally different and should never be compared. Ones a real prison movie and the other a pile of arty farty crap bordering homosexual filled with miming and crap music. The only parts i liked in bronson was the special guy dancing and the other guy bobbing his head at a desk. I near on pissed myself at that and was dissapointed when those scenes ended because the rest was crap. I think the guy in real life is a fairy compared to chopper. Chopper is the real deal, the movie is great start to finish with alot more storyline and depth to intriuge viewers. Bronson is just about a guy who fights gaurds naked with a gay moestache with gay music and no storyline or character depth. The miming scenes were absolutly gay as fuck, and straight up, if you actually thought it was good you are probably a homo that likes tom hardys cock fullstop!

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    1. Yeah, Bronson isn't a very good film. And Chopper is. So I guess that means I'm straight... according to your criteria?

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  14. Clearly, none of you have any taste or understanding of film as medium or indeed have a sense of humour! Bronson is an excellent film, as is Choppe,r but both should be appreciated equally...if you've any taste or understanding that is! The way Winding Refn utilises music alone in the Bronson movie is worth sampling. Have an idea of what you're talking about before you start spewing shit on the rest of us please, I find it offensive and more to the point, irritating.

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    1. If you're referring to the previous "Anonymous" comment, then yes, that was clearly very irritating. But my initial review and the rest of the comments were very fair. It's a shame that trolls exist, but please don't think that the previous comment reflects my own opinion. Far from it.

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    2. As movies I thought they were both entertaining I enjoy them both they are too f***** up individuals I guess that means I have a sick sense of humor!!!l as for fighters the one guy Charlie Bronson enjoys fighting either one on one for 10 on one bare knuckle fighter so that makes him harder than a coffin nail!!!! where the other guy enjoys torturing people I'm sure he's a badass brawler but he is more of a guy with a weapon so I definitely think that chopper will lose to Bronson within the first 3 minutes easily!unless he catches him! that is nt happen the other guy fights all the time but all good fighters sometimes get caught and as for the other tosser for the comment about Bronson's mustache you got some balls no no no I take that back you don't have balls because you're saying it through a text those are. The type of guys who like to talk s*** on phones or texts but when all said and done in time for talk is over you can't find them or they run to the cops you would s*** your pants if they come across a guy like Bronson or chopper. And that's that.

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  15. I've seen Chopper a few times and thought it was really good.. disturbing, funny at times, violent as hell... as someone mentioned there was nudity in it but I honestly don't even remember it... like at the gym, I don't take note of other guy's wangs hanging out in the change room, they are there, I am not interested and I forget about it. Only reason I was googling Bronson is it sounds like a Brittish "Chopper" and was wondering if it might be worth checking out. Will have to see but you've gotta love some of those older gritty Aussie films... I'm always surprised it was actually Eric Bana... I did really like Tom Hardy in a few of his movies and Peaky Blinders so I'll have to check out Bronson too

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    1. I'd be interested to hear your take on Bronson. It's definitely a different style, but now that Refn is well know, that movie may have aged a little better. It's still no Chopper, though.

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