Bronson (2008) - Directed by Nicolas Refn

This bold, brash, oh so British biopic about the most notorious criminal to ever grace Her Majesty's prison service is a real shocker, in both senses of the word. An opening scene, in which our freshly incarcerated hero smears a swastika onto the lilywhite prison wall with his own shit makes clear that provocation is high on the agenda. The shock and awe tactics, along with what can only be described as a dubious moral landscape, has warranted anger and rage of Bronsonian proportions amongst some critics (notably, Time Out's Dave Calhoun who dispatched Bronson with a solitary star, when five were on offer, which you can read here). Though it may be considered wide of the mark for a film to celebrate and eulogise a man bent on wanton destruction, with strong homophobic and neo-Nazi tendencies in the way that Refn's disconcertingly comic tale does, this is only a superficial flaw in a film that is riddled with more obvious inadequacies.

Firstly, despite its relatively slim 92 minutes running time, Bronson feels clumsy and laborious. Poor direction and apathetic editing are the main culprits. Slow-mo montage after slow-mo montage of the eponymous hero smashing up every prison he's ever been in serves as a gruelling test of the audience's patience. Secondly, the film takes a punt at art-house, and fails. The scenes in which Bronson gesticulates in front of a theatre audience as a deranged magician (the relationship between magician and audience acting as a crude metaphor for Bronson's hold over the hapless prison system) are so poorly executed and, for want of a better phrase, pointless, that you feel genuinely sorry for Tom Hardy who is evidently uncomfortable, going along with a painfully undercooked concept.

A 'pro' in a sea of cinematic 'cons' are the scenes in which Bronson is admitted into a mental hospital. Clockwork Orange-esque in its visual intensity (whitewashed walls bringing a strong visual aesthetic to the bizarre purgatory in which Bronson finds himself), the vital question of whether or not he was criminally insane, or just playing one big, sick game with the penal system is posed in an intriguing and engaging way. That said, this brief moment of quality, and Tom Hardy's raw, visceral, unhinged portrayal of the central character is not enough to drag Bronson out of the bog of inept Cinematic turgidity. Pretentious, unfunny, uninspiritng; needless to say it has 'British cult-classic' written all over it! 2/10