Bronson

Drew's Thoughts:
I checked out Nicolas Winding Refn's baroque "biopic" of Mickey Peterson a.k.a. Charlie Bronson "Britain's most famous prisoner" (a title he is heartily proud of) because my friend is really into it. It sounded a lot like Chopper, Andrew Dominik's (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) first film, which I like. And it is quite a bit like Chopper but probably inferior to it.
I don't really know too much about Bronson, other than he is/was a favorite of the British tabloids, and you aren't going to really learn that much about him from this film. The film is more concerned with style than communicating "facts" as most biopics tend to do. Considering how rote the "biopic" has become it's somewhat refreshing though light on content. Refn moves the film between "real" events and Bronson, with his bald head and circus strongman mustache, giving a surreal, circa-1900 one-man show of his life to an enthusiastic, packed theatrehouse. Tom Hardy, who plays Bronson, has a profoundly creepy presence in these scenes making them some of the best in the movie. Hardy is sometimes sardonically humorous and other times ferocious and frightening but absolutely manic the whole way through. Refn provides similarly manic direction with lots of bombastic classical music cues and some bold, ornately designed sets.
Really the main reason to see this is Tom Hardy's performance which is something like Christian Bale's magician in The Prestige playing a maniacal mutation of Daniel Plainview, The Joker and Capt. Jack Sparrow. Having seen Hardy in interviews and RocknRolla, he definitely transforms himself into a giant, psychotic, raving asshole. He relinquishes any personal vanity and dives head first into the role.
However, the script is pretty thin, the raucous film barely runs 82 minutes, making the film more of a showcase for the performance and production design rather than any sort of in depth study of the man. Though, there may not be that much depth to the man in the first place. The main thing I learned is that Bronson wants to be famous and for all I know that's the only motivating factor of the real Bronson's slew of violent in-prison tantrums. For some reason mysterious to everyone else, he only seems satisfied when he's wreaking havoc in one way or another.
Tom Hardy is good and could maybe be a dark horse contender for a Best Actor Dolphin nom, but for him to have a real chance to get in there I think Firth or Bridges or one of the other highly anticipated male leads will have to falter. The film will be worth remembering for Art Direction, Sound and maybe Makeup categories though.