Bronson (film)

Last updated

Bronson
Bronson poster.jpg
UK theatrical release poster
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Written by
Produced by
  • Rupert Preston
  • Danny Hansford
Starring Tom Hardy
Cinematography Larry Smith
Edited byMatthew Newman
Music by Johnny Jewel
Production
companies
Aramid Entertainment
Str8jacket Creations
EM Media
4DH Films
Perfume Films
Distributed by Vertigo Films [1]
Release dates
Running time
92 minutes [2]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$230,000[ citation needed ]
Box office$2.703.762

Bronson is a 2008 British biographical [3] prison drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, based on a script written by Refn and Brock Norman Brock. The film stars Tom Hardy as Michael Peterson, known from 1987 as Charles Bronson. The film follows the life of this prisoner, considered Britain's most violent criminal, who has been responsible for a dozen or so cases of hostage taking while incarcerated. [4] He was given the name Charles Bronson by his fight promoter, for his bare-knuckle fighting years.

Contents

Born into a respectable middle-class family, Peterson became known as one of the United Kingdom's most dangerous prisoners. Because of his violence, Bronson was repeatedly put into isolation or solitary confinement, which may have contributed to his emotional problems.

Plot

The film begins with scenes from Peterson's delinquent early life which he narrates with self-deprecating humor. Initially he addresses the camera dressed in prison garb. Other times, he tells his tale in a vaudeville-style theatre with a live audience. The film's story unfolds as a surreal narrative of connected vignettes punctuated by vaudeville interludes.

He recounts episodes of crime and violence leading to his first prison sentence of seven years. At sentencing, his mother hopes he will be out in four but his violence in prison extends his sentence beyond seven years. He is sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he continues to rebel and is administered drugs which he claims make him physically weak. His first escape attempt is to walk sluggishly toward the exit, where he is waved back to a chair by a staffer. He decides to escape by earning a transfer back to prison and attempts to strangle a detainee that revealed himself to be a paedophile, but is apprehended before he can kill the man. He comments to the audience that despite all his prison time and solitary confinement, he has never killed anyone.

In the vaudeville theatre, he shows film footage of a rooftop protest during which he claims to have caused "tens of millions of pounds' damage". He credits this destruction with the government's decision to declare him "sane" and have him released. After a brief reunion with his parents, he sets off to see his predatory Uncle Jack. He is welcomed and reintroduced to an old prison mate who promises to set him up as a bare-knuckle boxer, and gives him the name Charles Bronson, after the American actor.

Bronson enjoys the violence and showmanship of bare-knuckle boxing. Not content with his meagre winnings, he ups the stakes by fighting two opponents at once and even fights a dog. He proposes to a woman and steals a thousand-pound ring in the hope that she will marry him. She declines. After sixty-nine days of freedom, Bronson is sent back to jail.

He takes the prison librarian hostage and waits for reinforcements to arrive, alternately screaming at his hostage and peaceably enquiring after his family. When other guards arrive, he strips naked and forces the librarian to assist in applying his "body armor" of petroleum jelly, to make him harder to grab in the imminent brawl. After being restrained, he is warned by the prison governor that he will die inside if his behavior does not improve. Encouraged by a prison art teacher, who notices something special in his drawings, he becomes a model prisoner for a while, channeling his confusion and pain into vivid imagery of birds and grotesque creatures. When told that the art studio will be closing, Bronson attacks the teacher and holds him hostage.

While prison officials wait outside, he demands music be played. He paints his naked body black and ties the teacher to a post. He paints a moustache onto the teacher's face, forces an apple into his mouth and removes his hat and glasses to put on the teacher's head, making the teacher into a parody of a Magritte painting. After this human still-life has been arranged to his satisfaction, he accepts his fate, calling for the prison guards to burst in for yet another brawl, for which he will be sent back to solitary confinement.

Cast

Production

Hardy and director Nicolas Winding Refn promoting Bronson, 2009 Tom Hardy & Nicolas Winding Refn.jpg
Hardy and director Nicolas Winding Refn promoting Bronson, 2009

For the role, Hardy had telephone conversations with Charles Bronson, before meeting him. Bronson was so impressed by how Hardy had managed to build up his physique for the role and how good he was at imitating him, that he shaved off his trademark moustache for it to be used as a prop for Hardy to wear in the film. [5] "I honestly believe nobody on the planet could play me as Tom did. He is more like me than I am", Bronson told The Times . [4] Filming was done in and around the St. Ann's and Sherwood districts of Nottingham, and Worksop and Welbeck Abbey in north Nottinghamshire. [6]

In a late 2009 interview with Michael Slenske of Interview magazine, Tom Hardy discussed the fitness routine he had developed to get in shape to play Bronson,

SLENSKE: But you were doing some crazy training for that too, like 2,500 push-ups a day? HARDY: No, Charlie does 2,500 push-ups a day, I didn't do that. I had to put on a lot of weight as quick as possible and I only had five weeks to do it, and a lot of that was fat. I ate everything. To be honest, I lost about 14 pounds of fat on this last film [ Warrior ] and gained 28 pounds of muscle. I was heavier than I was on Bronson. [7]

Reception

Box office

Bronson grossed $2,260,712 at the box office. [1]

Critical response

Upon release, Bronson received positive reviews, with many praising Hardy's performance, the film's writing and direction, as well as the humour and the action sequences, though it was criticised for its violence. Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, gives the film an approval rating of 76% based on reviews from 82 critics, with an average rating of 6.6 out of 10 with the consensus "Undeniably gripping, Bronson forces the viewer to make some hard decisions about where the line between art and exploitation lies." [8] Metacritic gives the film a "generally favourable" average score of 71 out of 100 based on 22 reviews. [9]

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and praised the decision not to attempt to rationalise and explain Bronson's behaviour, stating in his review:

"I suppose, after all, Nicolas Winding Refn, the director and co-writer of Bronson, was wise to leave out any sort of an explanation. Can you imagine how you'd cringe if the film ended in a flashback of little Mickey undergoing childhood trauma? There is some human behavior beyond our ability to comprehend. I was reading a theory the other day that a few people just happen to be pure evil. I'm afraid I believe it. They lack any conscience, any sense of pity or empathy for their victims. But Bronson is his own victim. How do you figure that?" [10]

Bronson was not initially allowed to view the film, but had said that if his mother liked it, he was sure he would as well. According to Refn's DVD audio commentary, his mother said she loved it. On 15 November 2011, he was granted permission to view it. Describing it as "theatrical, creative, and brilliant", Bronson heaped praise upon Hardy, but disagreed on the implied distance between himself and his father, and the portrayal of Paul Edmunds, a former prisoner and nightclub owner (portrayed in the film by Matt King as Paul Daniels) as "a bit of a ponce". [11]

Bronson challenged his own family's reaction to the portrayal of his Uncle Jack, stating that he "loved" it, as would Jack himself. Bronson's trust in Hardy's acting grew such that once he had seen the film, he said, "If I were to die in jail then at least I live on through Britain's No 1 actor". [11] Bronson was originally displeased with the choice of Hardy as the star, but during their first meeting in person, Hardy assured him that he would "fix it". [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Stroud</span> American inmate and ornithologist (1890–1963)

Robert Franklin Stroud, known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was a convicted murderer, American federal prisoner, and author who has been cited as one of the most notorious criminals in the United States. During his time at Leavenworth Penitentiary, he reared and sold birds and became a respected ornithologist. From 1942 to 1959, he was incarcerated at Alcatraz, where regulations did not allow him to keep birds. Stroud was never released from the federal prison system; he was imprisoned from 1909 to his death in 1963.

Charles Arthur Salvador better known by his professional name of Charles Bronson, is a British criminal, with a violent and notorious life as a prisoner. He has spent periods detained in the Rampton, Broadmoor, and Ashworth high-security psychiatric hospitals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pelican Bay State Prison</span> Prison in California operated by the CDCR

Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is a supermax prison in Crescent City, California. The 275-acre (111 ha) prison takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about 2 mi (3.2 km) to the west.

<i>Das Experiment</i> 2001 German thriller film by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Das Experiment is a 2001 German drama thriller film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. It is based on Mario Giordano's novel Black Box and deals with a social experiment which resembles Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment of 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Hardy</span> English actor (born 1977)

Edward Thomas Hardy is an English actor. After studying acting at the Drama Centre London, Hardy made his film debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down in 2001. He had supporting roles in the films Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and RocknRolla (2008), and went on to star in Bronson (2008), Warrior (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Lawless (2012), This Means War (2012), and Locke (2013). In 2015, he starred as "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road and both Kray twins in Legend, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Revenant. Hardy appeared in three Christopher Nolan films: Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Dunkirk (2017). He has since starred as the title character in the film Venom (2018) and its two sequels.

<i>Pusher</i> (1996 film) 1996 Danish film

Pusher is a 1996 Danish crime thriller film co-written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, in his film debut. A commercial success considered to be influential in Danish film history, it marked Mads Mikkelsen's film debut.

<i>Brute Force</i> (1947 film) 1947 film by Jules Dassin

Brute Force is a 1947 American crime film noir directed by Jules Dassin, from a screenplay by Richard Brooks with cinematography by William H. Daniels. It stars Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford and Yvonne De Carlo.

<i>Hard Times</i> (1975 film) 1975 film by Walter Hill

Hard Times is a 1975 action drama sport film marking the directorial debut of Walter Hill. It stars Charles Bronson as Chaney, a mysterious drifter freighthopping through Louisiana during the Great Depression, who proves indomitable in illegal bare-knuckled boxing matches after forming a partnership with the garrulous hustler Speed, played by James Coburn.

<i>Brubaker</i> 1980 film directed by Stuart Rosenberg

Brubaker is a 1980 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg. It stars Robert Redford as a newly arrived prison warden, Henry Brubaker, who attempts to clean up a corrupt and violent penal system. The screenplay by W. D. Richter is a fictionalized version of the 1969 book, Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal by Tom Murton and Joe Hyams, detailing Murton's uncovering of the 1967 prison scandal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahmad Sa'adat</span> Palestinian politician

Ahmad Sa'adat, also known as Abu Ghassan, is a Palestinian militant and Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist–Leninist Palestinian nationalist organisation. Sa'adat graduated in 1975 from the UNRWA Teachers College, Ramallah, specializing in Mathematics. Sa'adat was elected General Secretary of the PFLP by its Central Committee in October 2001, to succeed Abu Ali Mustafa after his assassination by Israel during the Second Intifada. He has been sentenced to prison terms and held in prison since 2002.

<i>In Hell</i> 2003 American film by Ringo Lam

In Hell is a 2003 American action film directed by Ringo Lam. The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, with a supporting cast of Lawrence Taylor, Marnie Alton, Malakai Davidson, and Billy Rieck. An adaptation of the 1978 film Midnight Express, it is the third and final collaboration between Jean-Claude Van Damme and Hong Kong film director Ringo Lam. The film was released on direct-to-DVD in the United States on November 25, 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Silverstein</span> American murderer (1952–2019)

Thomas Edward Silverstein was an American criminal who spent the last 42 years of his life in prison after being convicted of four separate murders while imprisoned for armed robbery, one of which was overturned. Silverstein spent the last 36 years of his life in solitary confinement for killing corrections officer Merle Clutts at the Marion Penitentiary in Illinois. Prison authorities described him as a brutal killer and a former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Silverstein maintained that the dehumanizing conditions inside the prison system contributed to the three murders he committed. He was the longest-held prisoner in solitary confinement within the Bureau of Prisons at the time of his death. Correctional officers refused to talk to Silverstein out of respect for Clutts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angola Three</span> American prison inmates in solitary for decades

The Angola Three are three African American former prison inmates who were held for decades in solitary confinement while imprisoned at Louisiana State Penitentiary. The latter two were indicted in April 1972 for the killing of a prison corrections officer; they were convicted in January 1974. Wallace and Woodfox served more than 40 years each in solitary, the "longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolas Winding Refn</span> Danish filmmaker

Nicolas Winding Refn is a Danish film director, screenwriter, and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henri Young</span> American convicted bank robber and murderer

Henri Theodore Young was an American convicted bank robber and murderer who, while serving one of a series of prison terms, attempted to escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary with four other inmates in 1939. During the escape attempt, two inmates, Dale Stamphill and Arthur "Doc" Barker, were shot, the latter fatally. All survivors were quickly recaptured. Two of the men, Young and Rufus McCain, were sentenced to solitary confinement and served the terms at Alcatraz for a period of three years. Eleven days after re-entering the Alcatraz general prison population in 1940, Young murdered McCain.

<i>Violent City</i> 1970 film directed by Sergio Sollima

Violent City is a 1970 crime thriller film directed by Sergio Sollima from a screenplay co-written with Lina Wertmüller, starring Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, and Telly Savalas. Bronson plays a former hitman framed by a former boss and left for dead. He seeks revenge, but realizes his real enemy may be closer than he thinks. The Italian-French co-production was filmed in New Orleans, the U.S Virgin Islands, and Cinecittà Studios in Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Luc Levasseur</span> American militant and political prisoner (born 1946)

Raymond Luc Levasseur is the former leader of the United Freedom Front, a militant Marxist organization that conducted a series of bombings and bank robberies throughout the United States from 1976 to 1984, in protest to US intervention in Central America and around the world, racism, and the South African apartheid regime.

<i>Drive</i> (2011 film) 2011 American action drama film

Drive is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini, is based on James Sallis's 2005 novel. The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene, and her young son, Benicio. When her debt-ridden husband, Standard, is released from prison, the two men take part in what turns out to be a botched million-dollar heist that endangers the lives of everyone involved. The film co-stars Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.

<i>Only God Forgives</i> 2013 film by Nicolas Winding Refn

Only God Forgives is a 2013 action film written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Vithaya Pansringarm. It was shot on location in Bangkok, Thailand, and as with the director's earlier film Drive it was also dedicated to Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

<i>Papillon</i> (2017 film) Film by Michael Noer

Papillon is a 2017 biographical crime drama film directed by Michael Noer and also the last film by Red Granite Pictures. It tells the story of French convict Henri Charrière, nicknamed Papillon ("butterfly"), who was falsely imprisoned in 1933 in the notorious Devil's Island penal colony and escaped in 1941 with the help of another convict, counterfeiter Louis Dega. The film's screenplay is based on Charrière's autobiographies Papillon and Banco, as well as the former's 1973 film adaptation, which was written by Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. and starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.

References

  1. 1 2 Bronson, Box Office Mojo , retrieved 26 November 2011
  2. ↑ BRONSON (18), British Board of Film Classification, 19 January 2009, retrieved 3 May 2024
  3. ↑ "Bronson (2008) - Nicolas Winding Refn | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related". AllMovie. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  4. 1 2 Maher, Kevin (18 March 2009). "Charles Bronson: I am being slowly dehumanised, kept in a concrete coffin". The Times. Retrieved 6 June 2019.(subscription required)
  5. ↑ Morgan, Sion (6 Oct 2013). "Charles Bronson: 'I chopped off my moustache and sent it to actor Tom Hardy'". Wales Online . Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  6. ↑ "Film-makers invest millions in Notts", Nottinghamshire Live, 12 March 2009, archived from the original on 15 March 2009, retrieved 26 January 2019
  7. ↑ Slenske, Michael (October 13, 2009). "Rough Character". Interview . Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  8. ↑ Bronson at Rotten Tomatoes
  9. ↑ Bronson at Metacritic OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  10. ↑ Ebert, Roger (27 October 2009). "Bronson". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  11. 1 2 Bronson, Charlie (16 November 2011). "Charlie's reaction to 'Bronson'". The Charlie Bronson Appeal Fund. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  12. ↑ "Tom Hardy: Becoming Bronson". Ask Men. 2008. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.