Chopper Review

The real life star of Andrew Dominik’s Chopper (2000) is Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read. One of Australia’s most notorious criminals and now, one of the country’s most successful authors. In one of his first film roles (and probably his best), Eric Bana plays Chopper as both a vicious, dangerous, nervous ball of violent energy, but also, quite a likeable guy. As Chopper himself states, ‘I’m just a bloody normal bloke. A normal bloke who likes a bit of torture.’

The film opens with Chopper watching himself on television in an interview and follows him through two jail terms and the period in between in which he roamed free. Bana plays him with enough charm and honesty that it becomes very difficult not to like him. He kills drug dealers, has a good relationship with the prison guards and later the cops and is serving jail time for attempting to bust his best friend out of jail. Aside from the occasional bit of torture, he’s a sweetheart.

But it is the spontaneous bursts of violence and aggression that shock both us and seemingly himself. Whether it be shooting someone for cash or beating his girlfriend after a tiff, Domink provides us with enough uncomfortable moments to ensure that we don’t leave the film with any sort of romanticised view. He can be a nasty piece of work when he wants to be.

And this provides the main point of interest in the film, a source of internal conflict that is clear for all to see. We see him offer a victim a cigarette after he stabs them and drive someone to a hospital so doctors can remove the bullet that he had just shot into them. 

That said, despite the flashes of violence, Chopper is a very funny film, mainly down to the fact that Chopper seems to be a very funny man and Domink uses this humour as a means of lowering our guard and letting the monster in. Eric Bana’s performance is outstanding and he manages to pour more uncontrollable aggression into Chopper than was ever seen in his role as Bruce Banner in Hulk.

We see to have a strange relationship with famous murderers put on screen. Whilst we wouldn’t like to get too close, they provide such entertaining and interesting figures. What I wouldn’t give for Chopper to arrive uninvited to Forks and make Twilight a little more watchable, giving both the audience and Bella more to think about. Wolf, vampire or witty Australian nutter? I know who I'd want her to choose.

Any fictional film based on a real life cannot help but force the question: is this what they are really like? Can Chopper really walk the line between comic and nutcase? Is he really that funny? Was he really that vicious? And the end of the day, does it matter? Chopper is constantly entertaining, shocking, funny and intriguing and on the subject of its authenticity, as he himself states in the film, ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn’. And what a yarn this is too.

For those who want to know more about the ‘real’ Chopper, the film Fat Belly Chopper…Unchopped (2009) is a documentary about and starring, the man himself.