You would think that a movie like this appeals only to the crowd that likes prison movies. But you would be wrong. Chopper is so much more than a gripping prison movie. It’s a fascinating character study and a dark comedy that’s going to make you laugh. It’s a fucking masterpiece that’s ultimately exploring our society and humanity itself through the lens of a single man’s life. And it does so elegantly and straightforwardly that only after the movie is finished it will really hit you. Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be as good as it gets while you’re watching it. However, I kept thinking about it for days, piecing together this crazy puzzle I’m still working on.
Leave it to the Aussies to make such an upbeat and, above all, funny movie about such dark subjects. Then again, that’s exactly how our protagonist paints himself to be. This is a movie about Mark Read AKA Chopper, an Australian criminal who spent most of his life behind bars. The script comes directly from a series of Mark’s autobiographical books. What this means is that not all of what you’re about to see really happened. However, that’s not that important. What’s important is that we’re about to meet a guy we would actively try to avoid in real life and yet feel oddly drawn to. It’s kind of hard to explain that feeling but once you start watching the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Mark Read is a charismatic, physically imposing, wisecracking bullshitter who can back up his claims and turn on you in a dime. At this point, I should tell you that Chopper is not your average biopic. We won’t go back to Mark’s childhood or his teenage years and learn how he became the man we know him as now. That won’t be necessary and it would be arrogant of us to try to box him into one of our familiar categories. As the opening song says: Don’t fence me in… Mark says of himself: “I’m just a normal bloke. A normal bloke who likes a bit of torture”. And he says that with a smile on his face. This brings me to the main reason why this movie became an instant classic: Eric Bana.
Yes, the same Eric Bana you’ve seen in countless other movies, usually playing a good guy, plays Chopper. He’s huge, muscular, and tattooed. But more importantly, he’s got the right attitude. I guess you need to have a good prison movie on your bio to break out quickly. Just ask Tom Hardy, who played Bronson in the 2008 movie of the same name. While we’re talking about prison movies, I have to mention another great Australian one, The Hard Word. Well, two actually, as Animal Kingdom also explores the same issues but from outside of the prison. Starred Up is a good choice if you want something from the inside.
Going back to this one, the thing I liked most about Chopper is its unpredictability. You simply do not know where the story will take you let alone how it’s going to end. We go from one bizarre scene to the next and what makes them all feel even more bizarre is the fact that they’ve really happened. Well, most of them did anyway. So, you can watch this movie without delving into the whole psychological rabbit hole that’s clearly there. And you will be, to quote another great Aussie actor, entertained. If you’ve spent any time on Subversive Rabbit, you know that I like to get into these philosophical and psychological rabbit holes.
So, I cannot resist talking about what I saw in this movie and how I interpreted it. Both the movie and the real-life Mark Read. Chopper is a character study of a man who was practically born and raised in a prison. I just wanted to say that it’s a place where things are different but that’s not really true. It’s a place where things from the “free” society outside are amplified. It’s a tribal society without any women, full of hard men who are stumbling in the dark, trying to find themselves while also trying to survive and, I don’t want to say thrive, but at least be better off than they were. Chopper feels like a nature documentary, all it’s missing is David Attenborough’s.
*Attenborough’s voice appears: Here, we see a young individual just trying to make his day go by faster. He also wants to impress his friends and prove both to himself and others that he’s a grownup now. He never learned to control his emotions or what’s the right thing to do. So, he does what he thinks is right at that moment. And that oftentimes leads him into trouble. Okay, okay, I’ll stop now but you get the point. The whole movie can be an advertisement for the nature vs. nurture discussion. And since, as I’ve already mentioned, prison is just our normal society skewed and cranked to the max, it’s quite thought-provoking to see what happens in it. I’ve never been to prison and I’m not a tough guy or a criminal.
However, one of the scenes in Chopper took me straight back to my childhood. It’s the scene with the ear, and I’ll tell you all about it. I was in elementary school and there were these bunch of older bullies who fucked with us, outcasts. One winter day, they were throwing these icy snowballs and I decided I was going to do something differently. So I took the snow and ice and dirt and rubbed it all over my jacket. I was yelling and throwing stuff at them, at people around me, just acting a bit crazy. They laughed at me that day but I didn’t get hit with an icy snowball in my face. My on-the-spot plan worked and I did feel good about myself. I wonder if you had any experiences like that, tell me in the comments section.
Director: Andrew Dominik
Writers: Mark Brandon Read, Andrew Dominik
Cast: Eric Bana, Dan Wyllie, Vince Colosimo, Simon Lyndon, David Field, Renée Brack, Kate Beahan
Fun Facts: Mark Brandon Read AKA Chopper himself suggested that Eric Bana should play him after seeing him in an Australian television show Full Frontal. The two of them spent a couple of days together to help Bana further immerse himself in the role.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221073/
