Though I am not the first person, nor will I be the last, to say this, but the most accurate comparison to any other film that could qualify as an accurate description of "Bronson" is Stanley Kubrick's socio-political masterwork, "A Clockwork Orange" meets Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers". Tom Hardy plays the
leading madman Charles Bronson with stunning conviction and adept skill, giving us a ruthless, violently orgasmic portrait for us to fall in deep, depraved infatuation with the ego and subsequent fantasy of England's most notorious inmate. The cinematography and direction really hold the film together for me, even more than the vastly underrated and eclectic performance of Hardy, keeping the pacing and framing taught and very necessary with every scene. It is quite noticeable that director Nicolas Winding Refn follows the same discipline of filmmaking as David Fincher and Stanley Kubrick (which I often give the name The Kubrickian School), and the ardent perfection of framing, camera movement, blocking, sound editing and film cutting that are spot on. Not always as engrossing as I would have liked it to be, but more than holds its own in filmmaking stakes and viable story elements that make for a superior film.
February 4, 2012
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