Movie Review: Bronson (2009)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love biopics, and I'm loving everything that comes out of Magnet Releasing. When you put those two things together, I'm definitely in. We live in a world where the anti-hero is king. He's not always a villain, but he's usually a mess of a human being. Sometimes his intentions are good, but he just makes the wrong choices. We feel sympathy for his mistakes, but probably because we make mistakes ourselves, and we hope to be forgiven. Charles Bronson is sort of like that, but his intentions are generally not very good. He's just an insane criminal, and that's part of why he's England's most notorious inmate.

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The story of Mickey Peterson is simple enough. He starts out with a decent family and a nice life, but somewhere along the line, something goes wrong. He gets into trouble and ends up in jail more than once, and he can't seem to stay out for more than a short period of time. In one of those stretches on the outside, he becomes and amateur fighter and changes his name to that of the movie action star. With his new moniker, Bronson proves that he's not to be tangled with.

Tom Hardy is fantastic, and it makes me look forward to seeing him battle Batman. The film is told from Bronson's point of view, and it's done in a very different way. Some of the narration is done sitting behind an interrogation table, while some is presented as though it's a one-man show. To tell the truth, it almost seems like Bronson is living his own one-man show. It's very unique storytelling, and it definitely needs to be seen. This is something I'd set aside with the likes of Memento or Red, White and Blue in the style of presentation. You'll want to watch it again just for that. This is a must see true story.