Bronson is a British biopic based on the real life individual Michael Peterson aka Charlie Bronson aka “most violent prisoner in Britain”. The film loosely chronicles Bronson’s life from his youth to now. The film focuses on Bronson’s dream to be famous and it seems the only thing he’s good is fighting.
I found this movie interesting in the way it pulls you in. I feel what kept drawn to the film was based heavily on the lead actor. The actor playing Bronson was able to emanate this sense of power and he gave such a dead stare that it was terrifying because you could never guess when he was going to snap.
A problem my friend pointed out after the film that I had to agree with was the film lacked character development. The film makes large jumps to fight to fight to fight which was thrilling and a lot of fun seeing someone being a complete badass but you don’t get any sense of character. The film at one point showed Bronson getting into a massive fight with six guards and the next scene he is being released from prison. I personally believe the better story lies in how he was able to pull that off from being in solitary to freedom than just seeing him go crazy. After the film, I researched the real Bronson and his true biography seemed more interesting and even crazier than the actual movie.
You get no true motive for way he acts the way he does which ruins it as a biopic but I feel it adds if you look at this movie not as a biopic but a horror movie. By looking at in a different perspective as a horror movie it works almost better. This guy has no reason behind why he’s crazy, the only reason is that he likes fighting which makes him even scarier.
The movie was very visually stimulating and at time would overload you with information. The beginning of this film starts with an ending showing him getting beat up by a bunch of guards. Then you are shown shots of him over the course of the movie. I’m not quite sure what the director was trying to say by do thing this. I believe he either was trying to make the viewer unsettled by flashing all these confusing images or was to show that this character is living in a never ending cycle of fighting.
The film has a very Stanley Kubrick feel especially compared with his A Clockwork Orange. The director repeatedly used classical music which contrasted the extreme violence happening on screen. The film tried to depict Bronson not just as a fighter but almost as a performance artist. So the film has more of an artistic feel to portray this with unique lighting and odd shooting angles.
