Movie Review: Bronson

I know I haven't done a movie review in months, and I give you two in one week. I got caught up on a few movies in my instant queue, and they happened to be pretty damn good. Bronson is a story of a British criminal who at the age 22 was imprisoned for robbing a post office. He was sentenced for 7 years. However he has served over 30 years in prison, for violent crimes and over that 30 years in prison the majority of it was spent in solitary confinement. The story is told by the criminal, Michael Peterson (he later changes his name to Charles Bronson)through a couple different mediums. The first being in real time in which sometimes he reads a narrative however it is also narrated from him, in front of an audience, as if he is some sort of entertainer. I think this is an effective way of kind of showing the motivations of Bronson. Bronson who was also a bare knuckle boxer for some time, seemed at his happiest while he was shaking up the system. Whether that meant fighting the guards, taking hostages, or starting riots. Think of a radical for extreme chaos. He didn't want to be figured or changed, because he was happy being who he was, a raving psychotic. He even felt he should be applaudedfor being so. My friend compared this movie to A Clockwork Orange, and he hit it right on the head. This is definitely a film about bucking the trends of society. Here is a man that refused to be apart of the system. He did whatever he could to make sure that he lived a life completely to himself and that meant doing whatever he had to do to stay in prison. Not only in prison, but isolated from everyone else. Throughout the movie, you find that he is at home while he is locked away in isolation. It is when he is forced to interact with society in which he becomes a truly troubled soul.

Bronson is played by, Tom Hardy, and he is absolutely phenomenal. This is a film with nearly no likable characters, it can be very hard to watch at times. It is dark, and graphic, with no clear path to the story. However the performance of Hardy is what makes this film special. I actually wish the director would have done a little bit more with the character. As at times you have a hard time pulling any meaning except for what I mentioned above. I guess you could say it was a case study of anti- social behavior. Now I would not watch this movie if you are the type of person that needs to see your troubled characters come full circle. I assure you that this story doesn't have a happy ending. But it does tell the story of a truly troubled man, through his eyes in a pretty interesting way. It is also well shot, and like I said the performance from Hardy is downright scary at times. I would not pick this up for your next date film, but I would recommend checking it out.