Chopper review – Eric Bana’s best role still exerts a scarily charismatic pull
This re-release of Andrew Dominik's debut is a striking reminder of his immediate talent and a thrilling preview of things to come
By the time Andrew Dominik’s latest – the already-infamous Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde – actually releases, it will have been a ten year wait between features for the superb but hardly prolific Australian filmmaker. In the meantime, though, the re-release of his 2000 true-crime debut Chopper is here to remind us exactly where Dominik came from, a grisly and gripping account of the life of one of Australia’s most notorious prisoners that launched Eric Bana to stardom in what remains his career-best performance.
With a frightening but irresistible charisma, Bana brings criminal hardman Mark “Chopper” Read to life in an unforgettable display. Bana never found a role of this calibre again, but the legacy of his performance has been felt clearly in the decades since, perhaps most notably in the careers of Ben Mendelsohn and Tom Hardy, whose breakout roles in Animal Kingdom and Bronson, respectively, owe an enormous debt to Chopper. In Bana’s hands, Chopper is both a vile and tragic figure, paranoid and violent, but also never quite sure of his own motivations and always desperate to be liked.
Dominik, meanwhile, has gone on to flashier things – including his masterpiece The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – but the groundwork for his later career is plain to see here. He’s exceptional at immersing you in the unglamorous misery of the criminal underworld, all dingy lighting and buzzing chaos – the moment in which Chopper indulges in some cocaine remains one of the best drug scenes ever put to camera.
Even at just 90 minutes, Chopper is quite a meandering film, unconcerned with any real plot as we follow Chopper from prisons to stash houses to sweaty clubs, but the pull it exerts is undeniable. Still great in its own right, it also now serves as the best possible advert for the upcoming Blonde – after this reintroduction, I simply can’t wait to have Dominik back on our screens.
Chopper is re-released in cinemas on 25 March.
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