Chopper
(2000)
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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 apologises 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 rumours 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'. |
An extraordinary movie about an extraordinary man, Chopper is the boldest Australian film in a decade. Downbeat, gritty and ultra-violent, the sensational feature debut of rock-video director Andrew Dominik is a long, sharp shock to the system. Featuring a show-stopping central performance from Aussie stand-up comic Eric Bana, this totally unclassifiable biography of notorious criminal Mark “Chopper” Read mixes startling facts from his numerous bestsellers (one was titled How to Shoot Friends and Influence People) with large doses of pulp fiction regarding the supposed 19 murders he committed. Using a wild array of stylistic tricks — harsh lighting, frenetic camerawork for the drug-taking, characters speaking in rhyming couplets — Dominik's fascinating, funny and frightening look at Read's playful sadism is a masterpiece of innovation. Bana — the real Chopper's casting suggestion — is simply flawless, enacting the man's wicked humour and unstable mood swings with total conviction. You can't help but laugh while being appalled by this portrait of degenerate brutality, neatly summed up by the opening line: “I'm just a normal bloke who likes a bit of torture.”