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Reviews Counted:64
Fresh:50
Rotten:14
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Undeniably gripping, Bronson forces the viewer to make some hard decisions about where the line between art and exploitation lies.
Rated: 18 [See Full Rating]
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:13-03-2009
Synopsis: In 1974, a hot-headed 19 year old named Michael Peterson decided he wanted to make a name for himself and so, with a homemade sawn-off shotgun and a head full of dreams he attempted to rob a post... [More]
Starring: Tom Hardy, Hugh Ross, Juliet Oldfield, Jonny Philips
Director: Nicholas Winding Refn
In addition to celebrating violence, this most brutal of biopics is virulently homophobic. And its other disagreeable overtones of pretentiousness and precious fringe-theatricality make it a uniquely gruesome experience.
Don’t let Tom Hardy turn Bronson into a caricature of what we expect mad people to be like.
The career of a real-life recidivist hardman gets a highly stylised theatrical treatment, matched by virtuoso direction and a career-making lead performance.
The problem with Bronson – and the movie is certainly a problem – is how hard it wants to be a visceral tour de force, and how stunted this objective ends up feeling.
Top CriticAn example of a film that is, in all likelihood, considerably more intelligent and interesting than its subject.
Top CriticA weird and wonderful anti-biopic
Top CriticHardy delivers a committed if showy performance, but there are some awful smaller turns which smell dangerously of homophobia. The whole thing made me want to scrub my brain with Vim.
Top Criticin a film closer to A Clockwork Orange or Blue Velvet than to Chopper, brutal ultraviolence and arthouse oddity make for an arresting mix, while it is impossible to take your eyes off Hardy's intense serio-comic turn.
Bronson resembles A Clockwork Orange or Jubilee: brutal, arty. Tom Hardy is exceptional, snarling and uncompromising, alert and always impenetrable. We are not asked to pity Bronson, only to spectate at an exhibition of criminal creativity.
Director and co-writer Nicolas Winding Refn strives mightily to match his star crescendo for crescendo, which can be exhausting. But the film is nimble and spare enough to absorb most of the director's outré inspirations.
It’s a meditation on the art of rage -- an action painting passing itself off as an action movie.
Done differently, the cat-and-mouse brawling could get tiresome, but Tom Hardy as Bronson -- with his shaved head, handlebar moustache, and glittering eyes -- is mesmerizing.
If you want to spend two hours with a psychopath who loves nothing more than getting naked and brawling with prison guards, this is for you. I prefer vintage Kurosawa.
A figure this luridly fascinating, a personality this ludicrously outsized, warrants something more than your typical biopic.
A stylized portrait of a criminal famous in his native Britain as perhaps the most violent man in Her Majesty's prison system, Bronson serves primarily as a showcase for Tom Hardy's undeniably brilliant performance.
Strap yourself in for a jaw-dropping performance from Tom Hardy as he completely inhabits the role of Britain's most notorious prisoner in this highly stylised piece of mischievous cinematic vaudeville.
...not a great film but garners a strong performance from its star [Tom Hardy].
Nicolas Winding Refn ("The Pusher" trilogy) takes an experimental approach to the biopic, letting his subject guide the way through his life so far as if it were a piece of performance art.
Hardy's range is impressive, and he makes Refn's latest an arresting spectacle, if not a particularly enlightening one.
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October 08, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Retreat From Couples Retreat
This week at the movies brings only one wide release: Couples Retreat, starring Vince Vaughn and Kristen Bell in a comedy about a group of friends in marriage counseling in a... More...
September 29, 2009:
New: Brand New Trailer and Poster. 
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September 13, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
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January 27, 2009:
click for trailer and trailer review
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