Film

Chopper
Directed by Andrew Dominik
Starring Eric Bana
(First Look Pictures/Image Entertainment)

Reviewed by Peter Carbonaro

Writer-director Andrew Dominik's debut Chopper is a notable reflection on crime, fame, and the public fascination with crime figures. It's also the story of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read, Australia's most notorious criminal. But where Chopper deviates from the standard fare is that it reveals Read to be a liar, a psychopath, and an egomaniac devoid of any sense of right or wrong. Loosely based upon Read's memoirs, Chopper boasts an exceptional performance by Eric Bana, who reveals the confused failure of a man behind the hip public image.

Rather than a straight start-to-finish biopic, Dominik opts to start Read's story in 1976, when Read is already serving time on a kidnapping charge. He's involved in a battle for control of his cellblock, and his brutal quest for power sets off a series of events that ultimately make him a marked man. When he's refused a transfer to a safer prison, he coerces another inmate into mutilating his ears so he can be taken out of the cellblock on medical grounds.

We then join him eight years later, back on the streets of Melbourne, unable to readjust to life on the outside, or to differentiate between fact and his own warped version of the truth. The more he lies to create a glamorized image of himself, the more his life slips deeper into chaos. Eventually his paranoia reaches unbearable levels.