In a sentenceTom Hardy is alarmingly funny for a man we would rather not sit beside
Michael Peterson / Charles Bronson (Tom Hardy) wants an audience, and violence gives him a way of demanding one. His mother (Amanda Burton) and father (Andrew Forbes) are part of the family life behind the name. He presents himself as somebody worth watching, making his aggression into a performance and insisting on his own importance. The account mixes crime, dark comedy and surreal self-presentation as he pursues recognition. At its centre is a man whose desire to be noticed keeps drawing attention back to the behaviour that makes him difficult company.
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Tom Hardy makes Bronson funny, threatening and worth the discomfort. Nicolas Winding Refn’s crime portrait is held together by that performance, though its fascination with a violent man’s hunger for attention starts to wear thin across 92 minutes.
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson is worth seeing for Tom Hardy, with a firm warning about the company we will be keeping. The film turns a violent man’s craving for attention into abrasive, uneasy entertainment. It allows us to enjoy his self-importance, then makes that enjoyment uncomfortable. This is a useful way into a crime biography that might otherwise settle for explaining bad behaviour. The trouble is that the film finds the idea so satisfying that it keeps repeating it.
Tom Hardy plays Michael Peterson / Charles Bronson with enough humour to make the aggression unpredictable. The performance can be ridiculous without becoming reassuring, because the desire to impress never makes the threat disappear. We laughed, then felt uneasy about laughing: his exaggerated self-importance is funny, but the brutality gives that joke an unpleasant consequence. The comic and violent sides belong to the same person, and the actor does not tidy him up for our benefit.
Larry Smith’s cinematography gives the film’s stillness a threatening weight. These pauses matter because the aggression would become monotonous if every image competed to be the most forceful. Adrian Smith’s production design suits the heightened performance, making its exaggerations feel at home rather than like an actor overwhelming his surroundings. The visual confidence helps keep us watching, although it also makes the director’s fascination with this man a little too easy to share.
Matthew Newman’s editing makes good use of the shifts between waiting and attack. The pace can be brisk without making the threat feel routine, and the more patient passages give us time to become anxious about what might happen next. Johnny Jewel’s music adds to the sense that somebody expects an occasion to be made of him. It is effective, though the combined insistence of music, images and performance sometimes makes the film feel unnecessarily emphatic.
The screenplay, by Brock Norman Brock and Nicolas Winding Refn, is less persuasive. Its interest in violence as self-promotion is clear early on, and revisiting it does not make it much richer. We do not need a neat explanation for every ugly impulse, but there should be more to discover after the central idea has been established. Too often another display of aggression has to do the work of developing the character. At 92 minutes, the film has little excuse for losing momentum.
Matt King, as Paul Daniels, offers a welcome change of company. His camp performance introduces a different comic manner, and suggests how much a supporting player can do when a film is so firmly organised around its lead. Against the familiar promises of a screen biography, this one is pleasingly unwilling to make its subject easy to understand. It is less willing to ask what we gain from spending so much time in his company.
The performance remains strong enough to justify the evening if abrasive crime drama is what we are after. There is wit here, and tension, and the central figure never becomes comfortably likeable. But the film runs short of fresh things to say about him. Go for Tom Hardy; do not expect the film to explain the man he plays.
Most critics respond favourably to Bronson, with praise centred on Tom Hardy’s intense, darkly comic performance. The reviews repeatedly describe a portrait of a man who turns violence into theatre, and Hardy’s ability to make that spectacle compelling is the clearest point of agreement. Supporters also value Refn’s tense direction, surreal storytelling and visual style, finding humour as well as menace in the brutality. Photography and editing earn approval even from some who dislike the film.
The spread is wide, however, and the central dispute concerns what all that force reveals. Some favourable reviews acknowledge borrowed stylistic ideas, pretension or a loss of momentum. The Guardian finds the portrait indulgent and short on insight, while The Hollywood Reporter argues that its critique of celebrity culture cannot justify the punishing violence. Hardy attracts broader approval than the film’s treatment of its subject.
The critic finds the film wildly riveting and audacious. He singles out Tom Hardy’s ferocious, indelible lead performance for praise.
Read the full review →Schager finds the film fast, ferocious, and wickedly funny, with Refn’s portrait of Bronson’s violence both compelling and darkly comic. He especially praises Tom Hardy’s whirlwind performance and the film’s Kubrick-indebted visual style.
Read the full review →Murray finds the film an entertaining, tense study of a man who turns brutality into performance, though it can feel derivative and pretentious. He singles out Tom Hardy’s boisterous performance and Refn’s dynamic use of stillness to build anxiety.
Read the full review →The review finds the film’s mix of brutal ultraviolence and art-house oddity arresting. It particularly praises Tom Hardy’s intense, serio-comic performance.
Read the full review →Wise views the film as a darkly hilarious biopic whose unconventional approach makes it a likely cult item. He singles out its playful riff on A Clockwork Orange.
Read the full review →The critic finds the film a remarkably bold, cinematic portrait, while noting that its free-man sequences are less successful. Tom Hardy’s astonishing performance is singled out for praise, alongside the film’s tense direction and editing.
Read the full review →
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