Philadelphia Film Festival 2009

Michael Peterson was a brawler from age three—nothing but trouble for kids, teachers and cops. By 1974, married with a baby and with a seven-year sentence for robbing a post office under his belt, Peterson began a strange climb to the top to become England’s most violent prisoner. In short, a perfect vehicle for Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn to sharpen the edge he achieved in his Pusher trilogy to undertake this extraordinary story.

Peterson’s sentence elongates to more than 30, as he discovers something of a purpose elevated to an aesthetic of mayhem in challenging the penal system to a never-ending battle. Winding Refn frames the film in direct address, so that Peterson wages his war literally in a “theatre of battle,” adopting as his alter ego 70’s film star vigilante, Charles Bronson, standing outside the fray, commenting on it, enjoying it in a kind of critical camaraderie with the viewer. Gleefully malevolent, British actor Tom Hardy is a steely shaft of brilliance in the role of Peterson/Bronson, a shark in Falstaff’s clothing, romping through England’s most notorious prisons in the English music hall fashion of Archie Rice and The Entertainer. In Brock Norman Brock’s and Winding Refn’s screenplay, Bronson as man and metaphor mirrors notoriety’s triumph as the dominant social currency of our time. Beautifully shot by Larry Smith, the film’s style knits together Bronson’s mayhem with the cool detachment of his “Now watch this, mate” confidences to the audience, playing out like a series of perfectly composed and shot danse macabres. It’s the story of a wild working class lion all too willing to show Rome what it has become. A Sundance Selection. See this with Law Abiding Citizen. –Harlan Jacobson