Bronson
Bronson
A young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedFebruary 11, 2025
I did not know much about Michael Peterson aka Charles Bronson's lifestory or prison rooftop protests at Strangeways until I watched Tom Hardy's excellent carbon-copy rendition of this aggressively amusing character in the film. I remembered in retrospect there being something on the news about the rooftop protests that I would not have recollected without watching this movie; nor would I have known and understood what it was like for a person who was both romantically-inclined and poor to rob a Post Office at gunpoint to have passed on him the gruelling sentence he is enduring today; also later in the movie he does it again when trying to supply his desired fiance with a wedding-ring(?) among other things from a jewellers.
He is a notorious character especially for one who read about him in the news and reads his books about life inside, but this film paints him not as a villain, but as he truly is-an anti-hero who has fallen foul of the system and consequently bitten off more than he can chew in the form of prison terms.
Both witty and violent, this film makes for a thrilling discovery in a surreal moving-picture artform that keeps you on the edge of your seat like at a boxing-match wanting more of the same excitement it delivers throughout.
A lot of good movies are sold cheaply on the market now, and this is one of them, so buy it while it remains at a low price because you'll still want to see it if it increases in value as a future classic and would be missing a good movie if you didn't, so don't be put off whatever price it is. Hazel O'Connor's 'Breaking Glass' was a case in point. I had to pay quite a lot for a copy from Amazon, even though that is an obscurity now.
Some of my favourite scenes included the clown sequence, the dogfight and the artroom bust-up. The latter was hilarious, done only as it could be by Tom Hardy's (of 'Stuart' fame) trademark madness. The clown was enough to terrify the living daylights out me with its unnerving schizophrenic disposition, as was the nurse/prisoner dual-personality act he performed at one point.
A memorable movie for its excellent performances, characterisatiion and surreal story progress. It is the first of its kind, in my opinion, to resemble 'A Clockwork Orange' for humour, pathos and fantasy so successfully.