Winner of the Sydney Film Festival 2009, Bronson has been labelled as the 21st Century's A Clockwork Orange. Director, Nicholas Winding Refn has definitely been heavily influenced by Kubrick, creating a highly stylised film. Visually spectacular, the film is full of menace making it both engaging and unpleasant to watch. Tom Hardy is fantastic playing real life prisoner, Charles Bronson. He completely transformed for the part and really invokes the spirit of a lunatic. British comedians, Matt King and James Lance are also very good in their roles, with King ad libbing some of the funniest lines in the film.
Unfortunately though visually arresting, the ultra cool, uber-violent scenes become a little repetitive as the film progresses. The film fails to tackle the more challenging sides of Bronson's personality. Presented as a man who thrives in prison, the question of Bronson being institutionalised is never raised; and the concept of the unreliable narrator is left unexplored.
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Screenwriter Brock Norman Brock was out during the SFF, channelling the Bronson aesthetic, wearing a snug-fit tweed waistcoat and an impressively large handle-bar moustache. Listening to him speak, you got the impressive that what was on the page and what was on screen were not one-in the same. Brock alluded to some changes in direction for instance. the use of the vaudeville concept, was written in the script as a more intimate nightclub setting. He also spoke about having an interactive audience on screen, questioning Bronson's veracity as narrator.
The film adds layer upon layer of masks and disguises onto Charles Bronson, making it impossible to see even a glimpse of the man, Michael Peterson, who is underneath it all. After years of imprisonment, it now seems Peterson is keen to be released. You have to wonder if this film is going to do him any favours, it paints a less than sympathetic view of him.
Click here to read my review at
Trespass
