Bronson

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Screenwriters: Brock Norman Brock, Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Tom Hardy, Matt King, James Lance
Running Time: 92 mins
Certificate: 18

"My name is Charles Bronson and I want to be famous," booms Britain's most violent criminal while intensely staring directly at us. From this bold, confrontational opening Nicolas Refn's superb movie grabs us by the neck and refuses to let go, cleverly treating the subject matter with a surrealist slant. This is far from a straight biopic and is all the more rewarding as a result.

Bronson, portrayed by Tom Hardy, unravels his life story in the realms of a theatre to an enraptured crowd, with his savage thuggery creating a fascinating juxtaposition with the cultured environment. Decked out in a magician's outfit and laying bare his fractured psyche, it becomes clear that the movie attempts to view Bronson through his own eyes, craving status and using the prison as his stage. This subjective gaze is mirrored by Refn's expressionistic direction, with angry red colours never too far away.

The events in Bronson's life that we witness unfold in his early days of disillusionment and schoolboy violence before getting to the crux of his notorious prison days, although the narration underlines the fairly sympathetic portrayal of the man. "I wasn't bad, bad," he says. "I still had my principles." The movie also hammers home the point that Bronson has never killed a man and only committed one real crime in the outside world - a bungled armed robbery in which no-one was hurt.

In between a subjective recreation of the key events in his life, plus some deftly deployed archive footage, the action flits back to Bronson on the stage addressing the audience and putting forth his opinions. The film certainly suffers in the latter half when these sequences become less frequent.

The undoubted highlight of the movie comes when Bronson is dumped in a looney bin and pumped full of drugs to keep him sedated, after dishing out a few too many beatings on prison guards. This sojourn is both hilarious and sad, complete with an ingenious sequence of the zombiefied patients attempting to boogie to 'It's A Sin' by the Pet Shop Boys. It has to be seen to be believed.

Hardy is mesmerising as Bronson, regaling the crowd with his fantastic monologues in the theatre. The contradictions deep inside the character are wonderfully brought out through the way he often shifts from wild smile to blank emotionless stare, as if a switch has been flipped internally. Matt King, best known as Super Hans from Peep Show, provides much of Bronson's humour, delivering a superb performance as the flamboyant inmate Paul Daniels.

Although the scenes of violence are numerous, the brutal beatings dished out to Bronson aren't painful to watch. He seems so desensitised to physical pain that it's hard for the audience not to follow suit. That raises an interesting subject about the role of violence as entertainment, echoing Bronson's own perception. A stark contrast with these animalistic tendencies also emerges through his undoubted talent as an artist, with many of his creations being shown.

For the most part captivatingly brilliant and inspired, Bronson utilises daring storytelling techniques, a pulsating electronic soundtrack and the immense talent of Tom Hardy to deliver a thought-provoking, entertaining and audacious movie.


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