With this excellent true-crime drama from 2000, now on re-release, director Andrew Dominik made an excellent debut. However when it comes to sheer star-birth impression, Dominik had nothing on the breakthrough made by the main man he’d discovered, former TV comedian Eric Bana who gave the big-screen efficiency of his life, reeking with lairy anti-charm and black comedian charisma.
Bana performs Mark “Chopper” Learn, the notoriously violent and misogynist Melbourne felony on whose unreliable however bestselling memoirs the movie is predicated. We see him in jail within the late 70s, grinning, laughing and monologuing with eerie lack of worry; first launching a savage assault on rival powerful man Keithy George (David Subject) within the jail affiliation room, then snarlingly informing his cringing lieutenant Jimmy Loughnan (Simon Lyndon) that he intends to place the entire jail beneath siege by attacking some warders.
Somewhat than become involved on this loopy scheme, Jimmy tries to homicide Chopper with a knife, however his sufferer withstands the assault with virtually superhuman energy, cuts his personal ears off to get to a segregated wing, defends himself efficiently in court docket towards the cost that he was the one who attacked Jimmy first after which, as soon as out of jail, his worry and informal loathing of girls explodes and he makes use of his informant standing with native police to say he has carte-blanche to assault dangerous guys with the cops’ blessing. It’s an association which ends up in nonstop chaotic mayhem, fuelled by Chopper’s coke-addled paranoia.
Bana is just excellent, each because the clean-shaven moon-faced younger sociopath we encounter initially, after which because the chubbier, gold-toothed, moustachioed headbanger he turns into. In each scene – cell, courtroom, dodgy membership, sordid flat – Bana holds your consideration effortlessly, typically getting large laughs. It’s a efficiency you would examine with Joe Pesci in GoodFellas, and really appreciably higher than Tom Hardy’s efficiency because the comparable British convict Charles Bronson in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson from 2008, which certainly took some inspiration from Chopper.
As for Bana himself, I stated on the time that if he might do an American accent, he was all set. And that occurred … sort of. Chopper was the dilithium crystal that powered the 20-year-plus profession in films and tv that Eric Bana has gone on to have as a superbly believable lead in straight roles; some are attention-grabbing, however not like Chopper. I don’t assume something he has completed has matched the poisonous thrills and the hideous laughs he acquired because the scary joker and monstrous non-charmer. However why hasn’t Bana, evidently an incredible comedian, gone extra into movie comedy? Did he assume that comedy was one thing he’d outgrown? Did he need to keep away from Chopper/larrikin typecasting? Perhaps – and perhaps the roles haven’t been there for him. A couple of years again, Bana was hinting at a return to standup – however nonetheless nothing. There’s nonetheless time, although.
Effectively, who cares? Chopper is a superb movie. I nonetheless chortle when Chopper is totally unconcerned on the first stabbing he receives in jail, merely inquiring mildly: “Bit early within the morning for kung fu, isn’t it?” There’s his dismissal of Keithy’s blood-splattered agony: “Complain, bitch, fuckin’ bitch.” After which his lofty refusal to show towards his good friend Jimmy for stabbing him – on grounds of loyalty: “In case your mum stabbed you, you wouldn’t get upset …”
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