“Bronson” aims its spotlight at the illustrious life of Charles Bronson ““ not the American actor, but the human wrecking ball who copped the moniker as his fighting name on the way to becoming the “most violent prisoner in Britain,” as the press is fond of calling him.
This Bronson, born Michael Peterson and played here by Tom Hardy, has now spent 34 years in more than 120 prisons, and all but four years in solitary confinement. First arrested in 1974 for an attempted bank robbery, the vast majority of Peterson’s crimes were committed in prison, including repeated hostage incidents. He is now serving a life sentence.
Peterson is undoubtedly a larger-than-life kind of character and thus an irresistible film subject. But to see him glorified, as he is in “Bronson,” is rather disturbing. Nicolas Winding Refn, who directed and wrote the screenplay with Brock Norman Brock, portrays Peterson’s life as a kind of surreal theatrical performance, and he seems to have forgotten that at the heart of his film is a brutal and very real man.
It’s one thing to dwell on a disturbed psyche ““ and Peterson does provide a fascinating study ““ but it’s another thing to parade him around like an A-list celebrity. If Peterson is half as narcissistic as “Bronson” claims, I’d hate to see what this film will do for his ego.
But maybe I’m being too harsh. Refn’s presentation, depicting Peterson at times as a vaudevillian performer and playing some of his most violent acts for laughs, puts us squarely in his corner. This is the way it would sound, we’re led to believe, if Peterson were telling the story himself.
The film glosses right over Peterson’s childhood ““ “There was nothing wonky about my upbringing,” he says in a voice-over ““ and jumps right into the gruesome, meaningless action. This gives maximum screen time to the exciting parts of the story, but it also does away with any kind of plot arc. Peterson gets arrested, he does something nasty, he gets sent somewhere else, he does something else nasty, he gets transferred again. His final act of brutality is no more climactic than the first.
Yet, conflicted as I am about the film as a whole, there is no arguing about Hardy. He has given the performance of a lifetime as Peterson: crazed, electrifying, intensely physical, maniacally comic one moment and terrifying the next. A role such as this demands acting of epic proportions, and Hardy has made himself as huge as a man can be.
In one of the film’s best sequences, Peterson takes a male librarian hostage in his prison cell. He’s obviously worked out his plan to this point and no further, and when the warden calls to ask what his demands are, Peterson replies, “Well, what have you got?” Before you’ve finished laughing, Peterson is shedding his clothes and roaring at the librarian to help him cover his naked body in butter, to keep the guards from getting a solid grip when he tries to fight his way out. Someone create an Oscar for best scene and give it to Hardy immediately.
An earlier sequence shows Peterson at a psychiatric facility, staggering toward the exit while the other patients dance to the Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin.” A guard sends him back with a wave of his hand. Peterson, drugged almost to the point of unconsciousness, has no chance of escape.
Maybe the same could be said for Refn. Maybe, while working on this film, he became increasingly enamored with the sensational tale of Bronson, until he couldn’t see it from any angle but inside looking out.
Still, it would make me more comfortable if the filmmakers gave some indication that they’re not really on Bronson’s side. They even go so far as to humanize his character, as we watch Peterson fall victim to Alison (Juliet Oldfield), an emotionally cruel young girl who lets him give her a stolen diamond ring before running back to her boyfriend.
This is either one deliciously cruel joke of a movie, or Bronson just got some free propaganda. It’s not a sin, but it does make for one hell of a creepy movie.
““ Alex Goodman
E-mail Goodman at agoodman@media.ucla.edu.