Bronson

Tom Hardy is sensational as Britain’s most notorious criminal, Michael Gordon Peterson, in Nicolas Winding Refn’s visceral and stylised biopic.

Tom Hardy first made a big for stardom with his sensational portrayal of Britain’s most notorious criminal, Michael Gordon Peterson (better known by his nom de guerre, Charles Bronson), who’s spent most of his adult life in solitary confinement.

Having bulked up enormously to resemble the body-building prisoner, Hardy also captures Peterson’s warped sensitivity in performance that commands the screen. The first film made in Britain by the cult Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Bronson is much more than the straightforward story of a bad boy, punctuated with surreal and near-experimental sequences depicting Peterson’s inner world and his immersion in theatrical fantasies. A film that’s as much about performance as well as housing an extraordinary central one.