Chopper

Rating:
Summary: King at crime !
Review: A good movie and a must see too... In this movie, Director Andrew Dominik portrays the life of an hardened aussie criminal, Mark 'Chopper' Read. This tough guy knows what he wants (becoming a 'king of crime'), and doesn't hesitate to get it by all means if necessary... To my opinion, this movie doesn't glorify violence, and it should be seen at the second or may be at the third degree... Moreover, it demonstrates how many criminals, with the help of journalists, are making money with crime events !
Finally, Eric Bana is excellent and goofy in it. So, don't miss it.

Rating:
Summary: Bloody F!?*@%&%$!&*%?ing Brilliant!
Review: Those of you out there who have not seen this film yet,you are in for a wild tale.Not only is this film a kick in the A%$@!? to watch,but it based on a real actual person,and real events that did occur.Of course there were some artistic liberties taken,as this almost always occurs when novels are transformed to film,but this one was done exceptionally well.

Mark Brandon "Choper" Read is the last outlaw/vigilante to my knowlege,and would'nt ya know...he resides on my favorite continent on the face of the earth...OZ.This was man who went out and pretty much did what he wanted to those who typically preyed upon us smaller/defensless folk,and tor'em a new one.Make no mistake,Chopper is not glamorized in anyway.He is a very crafty,intelliget&scarry individual.He seems tame on the interviews that are on the extra's of the dvd,but he is'nt someone to cross,because anything you ever thought of doing to this guy,he's already thought of,and the thing is with him,is you never know what he's going to do.

He dispised drugs&drug dealers,so that is were he gets his deep dislike for them.However,without being a hypocryt...one cannot come to such conclusions without "experiencing it"and he admits to that more or less,along with many other incidents durring his narration of the film,if you choose to watch the film that format.He is certainly an interesting character,and Eric Banna's protrayal of him is so good,it is difficult to to tell between the real Chopper Read&his film persona.Banna went through great extents to be Chopper,so much to the point that he packed on extra pounds to acheive it.You'd never know it was him by looking at him doned with his prison tats,gold tooth&scarry,yet charismatic persona.This is one of the best films Australia has put out,only a few others in recent years can be put in the same catagory.Chopper is wildly entertaining,and funny...sometimes in a frightening&entertaining way.You can't help but love this character,even when he is at his worst.You will not be disappointed watching Chopper,and adding this to your dvd film collection only enrichens it.

Rating:
Summary: Intense
Review: "Chopper" is one of the more interesting films I have seen in the last year or two. An Australian picture, the movie purports to tell the story of one of that country's most notorious criminals. Films dealing with criminals or the crime underworld are far from rare, of course, as one need only to look to "The Godfather," "Goodfellas," or practically anything made by Quentin Tarentino for proof of this assertion. "Chopper" differs from these films in several significant ways. Arguably the most important distinction involves how we should perceive criminals. American films, perhaps tapping our age-old love of the outlaw, tend to glamorize the ugly brutality of criminal pathology. The Godfather films don't do this as much as Tarentino's pictures do, to be sure, but it's always there in some form or another. "Chopper" can't help but deal with the very public side of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read, considering he published a series of smash bestsellers detailing his sordid adventures, but a close examination of the film reveals a very subtle portrait decrying a thug and the society that idolizes them.

When we first meet Chopper Read (Eric Bana), he's serving a sentence in prison. Just as in American penitentiaries, Australian lock-ups have gangs, and Chopper is on the bad side of a particularly loathsome brute. What to do in such a situation? Why, walk up to the chap in the commons and stab him repeatedly in the throat with a sharp object! Moreover, when the guy thrashes on the floor in a spreading pool of blood, look concerned, ask if he's o.k., and offer him a cigarette. Obviously, the authorities don't take kindly to inmates carving up other inmates, so they haul Chopper and a couple of his pals in for questioning. Someone must take the fall for the crime, which gives Chopper's pal Jimmy Loughnan (Simon Lyndon) an absolute fit. This guy comes up with a brilliant plan: lure Read into a personal "conference" and murder him with a knife. By doing this dastardly deed, Jimmy can pin the rap on Chopper and skate out from under a conspiracy charge. And he tries to do just that in one of the film's most chilling scenes. Jimmy stabs Chopper repeatedly to no avail. Instead of screaming, clutching his gut, or going after his friend Chopper merely looks at Jimmy with a hurt expression on his face. The betrayal of a pal doing such a nasty bit of work hurts Read more than the knife wounds.

Or does it? We can never be absolutely sure what Chopper thinks because he's an incurable psychopath. After taking the fall for the prison killing, Read serves more time but eventually gets a coveted transfer to a less harsh facility when he has a fellow inmate hack his ears off. Exactly. He hacks his ears off. If that won't get you out of the stir, I don't know what will. Anyway, Chopper eventually returns to his life on the streets. By this time, he has his teeth capped with metal and looks even more frightening. He promptly strikes up a relationship with Tanya (Kate Beahan), a harridan of some repute, and just as promptly beats her and her mother senseless after she rebuffs him. He even pays a visit to his old pal Jimmy who, it should go without saying, is less than enthusiastic about a reunion. Read doesn't seem to do much except visit with his father, terrorize people, and look for a way to put some money in his pocket. He's obviously not the type to work a normal job, not with his explosively violent temperament. Here's a guy who goes to a dealer's house, shoots the guy in the legs, and then drives him to a hospital. Not your average corporate type.

At the same time, Mark "Chopper" Read is a charming rogue, a doughty yet loveable goon covered in tattoos and scars sporting a smile sure to win over the hardest hearts. You can't help but like the guy considering his sense of humor, his aw shucks attitude, and his concern for friends and foes alike. What other criminal would drive one of their victims to the hospital? Or express such remorse over the harm he causes his girlfriend? What a guy! Isn't Chopper a great chap! Sure, he kills, robs, maims, and brutalizes people, but his winning personality makes everything acceptable in the end. That would be the Quentin Tarentino take on Mark Read. Fortunately, director Andrew Dominik doesn't take that position. He does play up a sort of running black humor about the proceedings, but we never come to feel anything but revulsion for this character. A wistful grin and a sudden remorse over a violent crime never fully absolve Read of our scorn. The final shot of the film, where we see Chopper once again in a prison cell yakking it up with a few guards about his latest television interview, underscores our initial impressions of the big fellah. He's exactly where he needs to be no matter how charismatic and charming his personality. Thank goodness for prisons!

Eric Bana should have won some awards for his portrayal of this depraved goon. He disappears into the character, a fact confirmed after watching the brief interviews with the real Chopper included on the DVD. Also included in the extras are deleted scenes and an audio commentary with director Dominik and Chopper himself. A violent film not suitable for the squeamish or small children, "Chopper" nonetheless is an intriguing effort that acknowledges the tendency of society to idolize criminals while ultimately consigning that foolish notion to the ash heap.


Rating:
Summary: Raw, gutsy and real
Review: A rough movie about a bad boy. It rings true. It offers a glimps of a world most of us won't see, a place of ambiguos morals and quick violence. Erik Bana nails the title role. Absolutley entertaining from start to end.

Rating:
Summary: An Aussie Sluggo for All Times!
Review: Apparently famous in Oz (Australia...not the HBO prison) for writing self-propagandizing books about himself, this story of a raging, homicidal thug would be another couple of wasted hours with a brutal sociopath but for 2 things: the terrific & convincing portrayal by Eric Bana; and the fact that despite the violence, there is a strain of weird black humor throughout that I found irresistible. Anybody who can title his book "How to Shoot Friends and Influence People" is operating with wry humor and self-awareness at the least.

Mark "Chopper" Read is a sluggo and a violent-tempered petty criminal. That his violence is carried out on other brutal criminals, junkies & dope dealers, somewhat mitigates our initial shock (the opening of the film gets right to it). These are a bunch of louts doing unto each other. So, in the long run, who really gives a damn. But, there is the wry humor and that saves the day.

The DVD has some scenes with the real Chopper Read, older and living on a farm gotten, no doubt, from the phenomenal sales of his books. We can see his love of his own brutal self and the sycophancy of the filmmakers. Still and all, about 3 to 3-1/2 stars for this look at Down-unders low-lifes.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpeice
Review: 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.

This is the start of this amazing movie. Eric Bana IS Chopper in this unbeilivable performance. Unlike Oliver Stones Natural Born Killers where Stones makes the killers way over the top and seem like everything is fun, happy, and cool this is not the case with Chopper. Chopper is a human just like you and me, he's just mentally unstable. In the end it's hard to like Chopper because of his violent actions but in the same sense is hard to hate him because of his personility and deep down caring attitude.

Don't miss this great movie and DVD (great features, commentary by the real Chopper Read, and a funny interview with him) anytime soon.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpeice
Review: 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.

This is the start of this amazing movie. Eric Bana IS Chopper in this unbeilivable performance. Unlike Oliver Stones Natural Born Killers where Stones makes the killers way over the top and seem like everything is fun, happy, and cool this is not the case with Chopper. Chopper is a human just like you and me, he's just mentally unstable. In the end it's hard to like Chopper because of his violent actions but in the same sense is hard to hate him because of his personility and deep down caring attitude.

Don't miss this great movie and DVD (great features, commentary by the real Chopper Read, and a funny interview with him) anytime soon.

Rating:
Summary: Controversially interesting and electrifyingly violent.
Review: Based on the shockingly true story of Australian killer Mark "Chopper" Read, Chopper the movie had a lot of controversy around the world. Being given R18 ratings and NC-17's as well as leaving audiences jaws dropped, surprisingly, people still liked it. I was one of those people, Chopper left me stunned, informed and sick - in a good way. It's a great achievement for Australian cinema, but not for filmmaking in general. The flaw I found in this film that is major enough to put in this review with probably be the fact that the audience doesn't at all times get the interpretation of what just happened. What, is she dead? What'd he do to him? Um, is he in jail now or what? I mean, you don't have to be an absolute genius to work it out, but maybe the script had more or less supplied the facts about what was going on, the film could've earned a higher score, possibly become brilliant. As the way it is, Chopper is a very good movie with an outstanding performance from Eric Bana.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly subtle filmmaking
Review: Chopper (Andrew Dominik, 2000)

Andrew Dominik makes his writing and directing debut with the fictionalized biography of Mark "Chopper" Read, well-known Australian criminal and bestselling novelist. Eric Bana, soon to be seen in a theater near you in Ang Lee's version of The Hulk, stars as Chopper, a man who dreams of being the world's best-known (and loved) criminal. Problem is, he just can't seem to get anyone to take him seriously. The astute viewer will spend much of the film wondering why, and then realized that the "fictionalized" part of the biography is Chopper himself; it would be hard to argue with the hypothesis that, if Chopper were really as witty and intelligent as the film makes him out to be, he probably WOULD be the world's best-known and best-loved criminal. Bana throws one-liners even faster than Red Skelton did, and he rarely misses a good shot (verbally, anyway). Through the eyes of Dominik, Mark Read really is the "good bloke down on his luck" in which he's portrayed in interviews.

Then the astute viewer starts thinking. Is this really the case of hero worhsip that it seems to be? The script says yes; the direction, on the other hand, says Dominik is just as astute a filmmaker as he expects his viewers to be. Between the lines of the script are beautiful nonverbal depitcions of the hopelessness and frustration that dog Chopper's every footstep, from the look on Bana's face during the initial confrontation to the film's last shot, of Read sitting alone in a cell, backlit and looking as forlorn as the day is long. Dominik is obviously very familiar with the conventions of noir, and he uses them here effectively, giving the movie a depth and flavor that turns it from an enjoyable romp through one man's megalomania into a more balanced portrait. Very nicely done, and hopefully (assuming Read isn't as astute as the rest of the viewers, natch) we'll be hearing more from Dominik in the future. *** 1/2

Rating:
Summary: Amazingly realistic
Review: Chopper is a great film. Andrew Dominik, the director, did a splendid job. The film seems so realistic, the brutality, the dialogues, the places, the characters, it's all so well adapted to the kind of movie that Chopper is. The acting is really amazing, especially from Eric Bana, who plays Chopper. This man has the talent to make every single feeling of his character visible, and realistic. The violence, while being pretty graphic and brutal, isn't gratuitous or exaggerated. The violence "hits" the viewer, just like he was feeling the pain, it's very well reproduced. The character of Chopper is interesting, as a man who's trying to be THE criminal. This reminds me of films such as C'est arrivé près de chez vous (or Man Bites Dog, in english). This has a part of the anti-media message of Natural Born Killers, many similarities to the acting from Goodfellas and Casino, and a very personal touch, that you won't find in a lot of films. I had a great time watching this, and if you want to have a good one too, see it! I give it 8/10 (and an 8½ would have been better). Andrew Dominik and Eric Bana...check them out, they have future!