Tough guys do a dance, they dance around their issues, their varying degrees of emotional stability (or lack thereof) and their struggles to land a proper place in this world. It all entails a heady mix of swagger, instinct, burning rage and a fetish for embracing the primitive particulars of blood, sweat and sinew. This all tends to produce option for an altogether engrossing dissection of the animal side of humanity. It's hard not to get pulled into a good, solid foray into the violent potential of mortal nature. To address this, I offer forth two worthy pieces of evidence suitable for a place in this month's calculated rambling.

1. BRONSON: This example is a vivid biopic/free-form interpretation of the mindset of one Michael Gordon Peterson, a Luton, Bedfordshire-bred embodiment of chaos who effects the tag of "Charles Bronson" for more theatrical effect whilst building up a reputation for himself as one of the U.K.'s most notorious criminals.

The genesis of this man's seemingly gleeful attraction to sudden and relentless bursts of rash brutality are never predictably clarified. His upbringing is presented in quick passing as average and abuse-free, his youth-based troubles limited to standard issue scrapings (with a notable exception to the moment he is shown hurtling a school desk at an instructor).
The lad's attempts at average, middle class adulthood (courtship, marriage, child) are tossed aside care a low-profit post office stick-up. Once on the inside of the first of (very) many correctional facilities, Michael/Charlie swiftly enacts and hones his instinctive penchant for liberal heapings of the ultra-violence. The man finds in himself an odd affection for a life of rigorous confinement, often referencing his cell as his 'hotel' room and even displaying genuine traumatic resent when, at one point, he is declared mentally bent and shipped to a loony bin (which invites a succession of great crazy people moments, shame on me for being such a sucker for set pieces placed in insane asylums). A failed attempt at the homicidal dispensing of a fellow inmate who confesses to a lust for children gets our anti-hero a transfer to another institute for the 'criminally insane' where he promptly enacts a full-fledged riot.

A brief stint of public freedom (69 days) finds the ol' boy taking up bare knuckle boxing (where he actually first earns the Charles Bronson nickname) and awkwardly making a play for an already taken lass before a petty burglary conviction earns him a return trip into the warm embrace of the English prison system.

Back inside, Charlie further finesses his rabid dog reputation care a series of impromptu hostage situations and subsequent full contact tussles with a mass of prison guards, often whilst buck naked and lathered in some combination of blood, grease and whatever other substance may be readily obtained. This man invites such a relentless, brutal pummeling it almost seems as if he is igniting his own sado-masochistic brand of performance art, albeit at odds with the conventions of common sense and general human discipline.
Charlie envisions himself as some crucially warped form of star, shining on a stage of reckless fisticuffs and impartial savagery. To date the man has burned up a significant majority of his mortal self in solitary confinement (which is from where this self absorbed hard ass serves up hyper-real monologues throughout the film) and seems to have achieved a level of self-satisfaction in the fact that he has achieved his life's goal, to become and maintain a rude footnote in the annuls of British criminal history.

The film Bronson has been guided by a young Danish talent by the name of Nicolas Winding Refn, who keeps it off balance and of true interest by focusing on the fantastic, over the top alter-ego turned true identity of Bronson. This paves the way for a tight and stylistic 92 minute neo-opera of tragedy greeted as abstract triumph by a roaring, unkempt volcano of a man whose singular itinerary was that of super stardom through anarchy.
Fleshing this none-too-pleasant-yet-oddly-charming-in-spite-of-himself-rouge is one Tomas Hardy. Hardy presents what can best be declared as a balls to the floor performance in the role, never once showing a chink of fault in his thespian armor. The English-born actor has run the De Niro/Raging Bull trick (or at least half of it) by immersing himself both on a mental and physical level to ante up for the part. He blasts pure infectious rage as Bronson and has earned his stepping stone stripes to proper stardom. Expect to see this fellow with growing frequency in the imminent future, first in Christopher (The Dark Knight) Nolan's summer sci-fi opus in waiting Inception and further on in as the reported lead in the forever in development Mad Max 4 (as of now subtitled, Fury Road), grand things await.

2. TYSON: Ahhhhh, America's most infamous pugilist of recent note has earned himself a genuine, sensation and rumor-fathered documentary portrait. Pieced together by longtime friend, filmmaker/screenwriter James Toback from umpteen hours of footage (both staged for the film and archival) the picture seeks to separate the Mike Tyson of incoherent, ear-biting, ass pounding myth from the spent and even quite broken man of cruel reality.

The film gives up a Mike Tyson worn of early middle age and endless bouts, looking back over his life and accomplishments with a borderline schizophrenic slant that sees him postulate on events that shaped him (and serve as fodder for this film), from the dodgy Brooklyn streets of his youth to his lure into the world of boxing and his rapid rise to uber-stardom within its ranks. Intermixed are anecdotes regarding accounts and allegations ranging from rape charges, domestic and quite public disputes and even Tyson's deep set affection for his first true mentor, Cus D' Amato, who lit the spark that would ignite into the man for better AND worse.

Tyson presents himself as a willing subject for inspection. While never truly subjective in the basic sense, the movie gives Iron Mike ample opportunity to profess, mold and shape the truth of the life he has so far lived according to what he obviously believes it to be using a detailed bastardization of the English language as only this man could.

The heights of his fighting career are covered, as well as the lows. The key players in Tyson's life are presented and often come under serious fire, one fierce exemplification being promoter Don King, whom Tyson describes with vicious earnestness as "a wretched slime." Mike rambles and rolls with little restraint on the facts as he recalls them and finds time to both humble himself in memory of his mistakes and pomposities and even boast on occasion over the undeniable mark he has made on sports and pop culture history.

Scars and growing pains be damned, Mike Tyson has (as much as a man of his place and nature logically can) become both older and wiser without sacrificing the entirety of the bold and blunt force intensity that helped make him matter in the first place. Toback's film is a fine balance of celebrity adoration and warts and all case study, Tyson is given as a man full of vigor and pride as well as genuine and inevitable fears and personal shortcomings that have both troubled him and informed him as an eternally famous, yet ultimately human, figure.

In addition...It is drawing ever nearer to the onset of yet another epic run-through of the Wisconsin Film Festival. This, the 12th edition of the in-state cultural icon is set to roll around downtown Madison from April 15-18. Details are being finalized, but expect a fat selection of all things cinematic to aptly sustain your film diet (you'll want to take in way more than you actually will). The full official schedule arrives at this site – 2010.wifilmfest.org – on Thursday, March 18. Expect that this column will revisit the fest in greater detail (as in past years) in the immediate future. For now, let the anticipation build accordingly.

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