At 19 Michael Peterson (Tom Hardy) was jailed behind bars for robbing a post office. Over the next 34 years, 30 of which he would spend in solitary confinement, he would become Britain’s most dangerous prisoner changing his name to Charles Bronson and celebrating his own destructive nature.

CRITIQUE

Nicolas Winding Refn’s (The Pusher trilogy) Bronson is a one-trick pony. Thankfully, that one trick revolves entirely behind a drastically transformed Tom Hardy (anyone who’s watched him in RocknRolla, Layer Cake or Marie Antoinette won’t recognize the actor at all) and is an amazingly entertaining one. The movie is thin, a tad emotionally vacant and doesn’t have a lot of depth but yet it is still mesmerizing first frame to last, and while I didn’t know much more about Peterson/Bronson by the end than I did at the beginning I was so entertained by everything up on the screen to say I didn’t particularly mind is something of a major understatement.

I guess the most apt comparison here is to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, but even that is a little bit of a stretch. While the same anarchic atmosphere permeates both, Kubrick had a way of drawing the viewer in emotionally that Refn can’t quite match. This is a movie I sat back on my couch and stared out in giddy (and sometimes mortified) awe but yet was never moved one way or the other by any of it, and while the similar can be said for A Clockwork Orange the way it made me feel and how it emotionally devastated me at the end is one thing Bronson just can’t come close to equally.

But, like I said, Hardy is such a revelation here I seriously didn’t mind I was watching a relatively vacant and uncomplicated freak-out mainly because the actor was just so magnificent in the title role. He seems to have taken his craft to an entirely new level, and whether he’s greasing himself up before purposely engaging the prison guards in fights or staring blankly at the camera dressed as the clown from Pagliacci the chances I was going to take my eyes off of the guy for a single second was absolutely nil.

Does this alone make Bronson a great movie? It does, however, make it a very good one, especially when combined with Refn’s reckless urgency behind the camera amplifying the manic atmosphere to almost unimaginable heights. This is a film that constantly challenges and amazes, and as both technical and acting triumphs its plusses severely outweigh any of its minuses.

THE VIDEO

Bronson is presented in 1080p 1.85:1 Widescreen. Magnolia’s transfer is immaculate, especially considering the gritty, super-stylized filming techniques Refn asked his cinematographer Larry Smith (Fear X) to employ.

THE AUDIO

Available audio includes English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio with optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

Extras include:

• Charles Bronson Monologues – Extended monologues of the inmate that are quite fun to watch and are almost guaranteed to shock as much as they amaze.
• Making of Bronson – Typical behind-the-scenes piece that doesn’t go too far out of the realm of the expected.
• Training Tom Hardy – Training montage of Hardy as he undergoes his startling physical transformation to become Michael Peterson/Charles Bronson.
• Interviews with Nicolas Winding Refn, Tom Hardy and fellow actor Matt King – Good (if not great) interview featurettes with the three of the major players who make Bronson tick.
• Behind the Scenes Footage – Nothing too interesting here; only worth a single glance and that’s about it.
• Original Theatrical Trailer 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Bronson is an explosively entertaining and mesmerizing movie that sadly doesn’t reveal anymore about its primary protagonist at the end as it did at the start. Thanks to remarkable work by actor Tom Hardy this is a surprisingly forgivable thing, and while I wouldn’t recommend a purchase a rental that includes multiple viewings before return wouldn’t be out of the question.