“Chopper” is the extreme story about Mark “Chopper” Read’s criminal life in and out of jail based off of his best-selling autobiography, “From the Inside.”
IMDB categorizes “Chopper” as a biographical crime drama but it is more of a fictionalized biopic with dark humor. One second Chopper’s actions are mortifying and the next second they are funny. It is one those few movies that successfully combine horrific violence and comedy.
The violence is similar to “Natural Born Killers” with Woody Harrelson and the humor is similar to Guy Ritchie’s “Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” movies.
In his first leading role Eric Bana knocks it out of the park as Read. Without Bana’s performance the movie would have suffered, he perfectly walks the line between a man with boyish charm and a schizophrenic murderer.
Bana’s supporting cast gives just as good of a performance as he did. Chopper Read’s relationships between his trashy girlfriend, his peculiar dad and his junkie best friend are the best parts in the movie.
In his directorial debut Andrew Dominik did a great job making a witty gritty story translate well to the screen. Before viewing remember that he deliberately made the film look grainy to give it a realistic appearance. Dominik also directed “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” which was pretty good but it lagged at the end and didn’t have enough action.
This movie is given a 70 percent by all critics on Rotten Tomatoes but the top critics give it an 85 percent rating and the audience rating is 89 percent rating.
This particular movie is not recommended for kids, adults over 40 or most women because it has shockingly bloody scenes and humor that people from another generation might think is demented.
Rating: B+
It would have been an A- if it didn’t get a little repetitive by the end.
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