Film: Bronson
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Release Date: October 2008
Before director Nicolas Winding Refn made the critically-acclaimed neo-noir film Drive (and the less well-received Only God Forgives), he was making a name for himself in Europe with a penchant for hyper-real crime dramas that focused on the grittiness of the underbelly of society. It should make sense then that it was Refn who would direct Bronson, the tale of a man frequently proclaimed “Britain’s most violent prisoner”. Because at the heart of this film is Charlie Bronson, an ugly, angry man who loves fighting and calls his prison cell a “hotel room”, a sort of uncomfortable figure to acknowledge can possibly exist.
The film itself, made on a shoestring budget of only $230,000, is told from the perspective of Charlie Bronson as the star of a one-man show of his life, an allusion to his obsession with fame and the idea that he is special. While the film has many clever stylistic elements, including a conversation between Bronson and his own portrayal of another character, it retains a rawness when it comes to the fighting sequences. And there are a lot of them. Charlie rubs himself down with varying substances numerous times throughout the movie and gets in extended fights with guards, inmates, and others. But they never stray into the realm of cheesy choreography, because each one is an ugly brawl, and one senses at all points the brutality of the fight and Bronson’s masochistic (or perhaps sadistic) enjoyment of it.
But the real reason this film succeeds is Tom Hardy’s portrayal of the titular character. Hardy has gained a great deal of well-deserved acclaim for his roles in Christopher Nolan’s Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, but enough cannot be said of his range and ability to really embody characters. He is part Victorian strongman, part brooding, troubled soul, part crowd-pleasing showman, and part deranged psychopath. And Hardy really captures the interplay between these elements in a way that is always deeply interesting and entirely entertaining. Hardy’s mustachioed lunatic has the sort of charisma that one is always thrilled to discover, and though he is on screen for north of 90% of the film’s runtime, it is hard to not wish that he was present for more of it. There are some films that are driven by the vision and design of their director, and others that are driven by the force of their star, and though Refn is by no means a slouch, Bronson is a delightful film because of the marvelous job that Hardy does in displaying all of the elements of a conflicted, contradictory, and occasionally charming brawler. If nothing else, you should watch this film to see the sort of things that Tom Hardy is capable of as an actor.