NO INTRODUCTIONS NEEDED FOR THIS ONE - I GIVE YOU "BRONSON"

I came to watch Bronson when I was in a very peculiar mood indeed. You know “those” days, you may have got out of bed the wrong side, something may have gone very wrong in the office, or everything may have gone slightly wrong everywhere… In short, you’ve had enough, your nerves are in shreds and you feel rather belligerent and at odds with the world. Not, you may observe, the best frame of mind for a film. Not Bronson. If I had to describe my experience of it, I would use one word only: cathartic.
Which brings me to my disclaimer. Be warned, Bronson is not for the faint of heart or stomach. The level of violence portrayed is positively Tarantinian (and if that isn’t a word it damn well should be!) and the way the said violence is portrayed can be downright disturbing. Personally, this was not so much of a problem for me, I am a massive Tarantino fan, it should be said. But you may not be. So be warned.
Bronson is the true story of Michael Peterson, or rather his alter-ego, Charles Bronson, Britain’s most famous and most violent prisoner. We follow Bronson shocking career from prison to a facility for the criminally insane, to the outside world and back “inside” again. Not only do we get a blow by blow (very literally) account, it is Bronson himself who is narrating it! (well, not the real Bronson but Tom Hardy does such a spectacular job of the part you could be forgiven for being fooled) Thus we travel all the way into Bronson’s world, his psyche. And the fact that he actually is criminally insane makes for very interesting scenery indeed.
So far, Nicholas Wendig Refyn’s Bronson has taken Sundance, Rotterdam, London and Dublin film festivals by storm, and I can quite see why. And if you ever get round to watching this film, within 30 seconds of meeting Tom Hardy’s version of Bronson, I guarantee it, so will you…