"tough, provocative and challenging."
Chopper (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:64
Fresh:45
Rotten:19
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: Eric Bana's performance as the charming but twisted Chopper is the highlight of this disturbing portrait about Australia's notorious author/criminal.
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Australian comedian Eric Bana is Mark "Chopper" Read, a legendary criminal who wrote his best-selling autobiography, FROM THE INSIDE, while serving a murder sentence in prison. Beginning in the... Australian comedian Eric Bana is Mark "Chopper" Read, a legendary criminal who wrote his best-selling autobiography, FROM THE INSIDE, while serving a murder sentence in prison. Beginning in the blue-washed light of a maximum security Melbourne prison, Chopper establishes his dominance with the impulsive knifing of a fellow prisoner. Vaccillating between violence and regret, Chopper apologizes to his victim, but his good mate Jimmy (Simon Lyndon) later retaliates against Chopper in an excruciating contract stabbing, rife with sexual tension. Finally released from prison, the heavily-tattooed Chopper has lost the better part of both of his ears, as well as the ability to make any distinction between his own made-up stories and reality. At a nightclub with his prostitute girlfriend, Tanya (Kate Beahan), he runs into Neville (Vince Colosimo), an old victim who limps from the attack but glitters in drug-funded gold. In his paranoia, Chopper connects rumors of a new contract on his life to Neville, Tanya, and his old mate Jimmy, to whom he pays a visit and discovers a man rotting from drug abuse. Alternately wickedly funny and grotesque, CHOPPER gives no easy answer to the question of Chopper Read's motives, but his method is clear, "Ya bash people for no reason, just to get a name for yourself." [More]
Starring: Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, Dan Wyllie, David Field
Starring: Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, Dan Wyllie, David Field, Bill Young, Vince Colosmo, Kenny Graham, Kate Beahan
Director: Andrew Dominik
Director: Andrew Dominik
Screenwriter: Andrew Dominik
Producer: Michele Bennett
Studio: First Look
Reviews for Chopper
The film is really much ado about very little because it takes no stand and gives little insight into the Chopper's psyche , all while too carefully catering to his machinated media image.
It's a great style, it's a fabulous performance, but it never quite finds what it's searching for.
Marks an impressive debut for Dominik and a revelation of Bana's talent.
The ways Read twists and embellishes the truth become progressively less interesting.
After about an hour, you realize that Chopper is sordid and bloody with no purpose.
Bana radiates the sort of warped charisma that explains how an ultraviolent convict could capture the public's imagination.
Like a lot of video-game violence, much of Chopper is meant to be perversely funny. But it's a different kind of perversely funny.
Did you ever feel like you should take a shower after watching a film?
U.S. moviegoers probably won't understand what all the hubbub is about.
Bana's gift -- and his triumph -- is that he makes us somehow care about this magnetic monster, without ever letting us feel as if we've figured him out.
fatally unforgettable tale of a man who makes you ashamed to be human.
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