Cast: Eric Bana
Director: Andrew Dominik.
Rating:: R18 (graphic violence, drug use, offensive language).
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Screening: Previews today and tomorrow at Rialto, Village cinemas. Opens Thursday.
Review: Russell Baillie
Of course, making a movie about him risks making even more of a cult figure of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read
- notorious Aussie bad bastard - than he already is.
The underworld legend has already done the groundwork on that front, having penned nine books, which have made him one of Australia's best-selling authors, as well as releasing two CDs.
Now comes the movie, though New Zealand-born debut-feature director Dominik has said that Read, now paroled and living in Tasmania, had no direct involvement nor received any film-rights cash.
But he apparently liked the result, which is a bit of a worry if we're considering things like the glorification of violence, moral perspectives, and biographical accuracy.
The film certainly does the first, doesn't seem to have a second, and as for the third, the opening credits come with a rider which says narrative liberties have been taken with Read's story and that it's not a biography.
What is it then? Well, it's a larrikin cousin to previous chilling Aussie flicks, such as Ghosts of the Civil Dead and The Boys.
And it comes with a startling portrayal of Read by Bana, the onetime comedian from telly's Full Frontal who you might remember as the kickboxing son-in-law from The Castle.
Bana plays Read during various episodes in his mostly prison-bound life, showing the heavily tattooed thug's funny bone was connected to his evil streak.
Although you flinch at yet another act of Read's brutality - or most memorably an act of self-mutilation which makes that infamous torture scene in Reservoir Dogs look mild by comparison - the humour undercuts the violence, a fact which should leave you worried long after the highly stylised visuals have faded from your memory.
It's clear that whatever the opposite of "master criminal" is, the paranoid, sociopathic Read was, during a career from which he claims to have been involved in some 19 deaths - a couple of which are dissected in grim detail.
See this compelling if worrying film, if you have the stomach, if only for Bana's riveting performance, a grim, grinning portrait of a real bad, real funny, real mad bastard.
It's enough to leave you pondering: is Tasmania far enough away?
