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Just what I expected

Absolutely Brilliant!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Humour, strong violence and an art-house style plot line (weaving flashbacks with present scenes, fantasy and other memories) make up this cult Australian hit of a movie which helped bring comedian Eric Bana (BLACK HAWK DOWN) to worldwide fame. This ruthless, darkly-written tale charts the ups and downs of Bana's life as "Chopper", a notorious criminal who kills people in cold blood and has his own ears cut off in one gruesome scene.My sole problem with the film is that it feels a bit unfocused – it's more of a portrait than a story and doesn't really progress anywhere. Characterisation is also limited, and it's mainly Bana's winning performance that livens things up. Saying this, the humour comes thick and fast, there are some great one-liners, and realism is top-notch. It's just a pretty difficult film to like or classify.

Before this film, I didn't know anything about Mark "Chopper" Read or his notorious background, so I just looked at this as entertainment and nothing more, not anything educational.As a piece of entertainment, Chopper definitely works. The language, the culture, the style is all very prevalent and established by the filmmaking and acting, and Bana more or less carries the film with his performance.If there are any complaints, that would be it, there aren't enough other noteworthy characters in the film, nobody who commands the scene and attention like Chopper, but I suppose that was the point.It's more subtle and realistic than many crime flicks, with not many shootouts and a few very clever ways to convey the events of this part of Read's torrid and insane life. Even if it's not factual, Bana definitely gives you a sense of how this man just cannot stop getting himself into trouble. He's lovable yet awful, an interesting thug, and definitely memorable. If you're looking for a good character piece, go with Chopper.

This is basically the movie that pretty much made Eric Bana, and while it has been suggested that it is not supposed to be a comedy, there are quite a number of parts where you just cannot help but burst out in laughter (such as the scene where he shows some woman him member in the bar), even after having seen the movie at least four or five times previously. In fact, it is one of those movies that even though you know what is coming up, the scene itself is still very amusing.I am sure everybody in Australia knows who Uncle Chop Chop, or Mark 'Chopper' Brandon Reid is, but for those international people who don't believe that there is anything of relevance outside of their borders, he was basically a Melbourne standoverman who pretty much made a packet (legitimately) by writing a series of books while he was in prison. As he says in the movie, he is a best selling author, and he can't spell, so there are probably a bunch of university graduated English majors who are fuming. My thoughts are more power to him, particularly since what he writes about (and shame on me for not actually having read any of his books) are things that people actually want to read.The question really is whether the events in this movie are true or not. Well, to be honest with you, as Chopper says himself, the movie is 100% true and 100% rubbish. The one thing that crims, especially those like Chopper Read, is to take a true story and embellish it so much that nobody can actually use the story itself to prove that what actually happened is true or false. Mind you, most of the scenes in Pentridge (with maybe the exception of the stabbing murder of one of the Painters and Dockers leader) are probably true, namely because there are corroborative sources, but then most of those scenes do not implicate him in anything anyway. Still, the murder probably did happen as described, but then again we will never know.However, there are parts of this film that are not true to form. Granted, Bana plays his role brilliantly, right down to the fact that you can actually believe that he is some paranoid, drug crazed, standoverman, however Chopper actually took offence at the suggestion that he actually beat up women. To be honest, there are aspects of the criminal world that would not stand for that type of behaviour. They say that there is no honour among thieves, but that saying is actually as flawed as some of the stories in this film.As is suggested, Chopper never went after or assaulted an innocent person, and this is very much the case among the professional underworld. They are not interested in innocent people. Those who commit muggings and break and enters of random houses then to be young street kids, those that the professional underworld considers expendable. The professionals actually don't care about these people, namely because there are more important fish to fry when dealing with the underbelly of society. Mind you, while the criminal underworld intrudes into every aspect of our lives (you can be assured that the local pub is probably paying protection money to somebody) those of us who are not involved in it, probably don't need to worry about having some professional killer come gunning after you.

In telling the story of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read, one of Australia's most famous criminals, the script combined Read's own autobiographical bestseller with what actually happened, which makes for an interesting, sometimes confusing blend of reality and invention. That mix makes for a very interesting watch, even if there's not enough material for a satisfying film; it could have been a thirty-minute film and achieved about the same level of success, and it doesn't leave you with any clear notion of what you saw. Chopper doesn't quite work out as a biography or even a character study, but it's an intriguing document on violence and violent people, and about what makes the same people land in trouble again and again.On top of that, it's also pretty entertaining. Eric Bana is terrific in the lead. Not being from Australia myself, I first became aware of Bana as a leading man in American mainstream films like Troy and Hulk, where he always struck me as dull and uncharismatic, but finding out that he was a successful comedian is his native country first makes a lot of sense after seeing his disturbing, layered and very funny performance as Chopper. It's difficult to call it a comedy - don't expect a crime farce like Snatch, because there's very little of that going on. But Chopper's character is outrageous enough to be entertaining throughout.