Bronson and Why Can't They Get Neo-Noir Right?

A couple of days detour into newer releases had Give 'Em Hell Malone and Bronson on tap last night.

Bronson was a treat. I first heard about it from Graham last year and if I recall, it made his post-deadline top ten list for 2009. It's the story of Britain's most dangerous prisoner, Charley Bronson, a man incarcerated for most of his adult life, much of it spent in solitary confinement. Bronson is a wickedly entertaining film, directed with some nice stylistic touches by Danish film maker Nicholas Winding Refn (of Pusher fame, a film worth seeing if you missed it). The star of the film is undoubtedly Tom Hardy, who arguably delivers the most compelling performance of the year as the barking-mad Bronson. He is simply stunning. I'm not sure you can (or should try to) read much into Bronson. For all the operatic indulgences and surreal stage play structure employed to tell the story, Bronson distills down to a relatively straightforward biography about the ultimate misfit, a violent man completely at odds with society and its rules.

That the film works at all is a testament to the power of a brilliant performance and the unique artistic vision that the film maker/screenwriter/actors brought to the table. On a slightly separate note, the excellent score Graham mentioned in his earlier post is the glue that holds Bronson together. It's almost a character in the film - ethereal, funny and poignant, the kind of soundtrack that enhances scenes but doesn't get in the way. I'm hesitant to go all the way and call this an unqualified home run. It's the kind of film that delivers huge in the thrills department and demands a second viewing, but I'm still not 100% sure it warrants the top marks I want to heap upon it. Bronson left me with the same feeling I had after Hedwig and Pete Tong, if that makes any sense. I'm going to let it percolate for a few days and stew on it before I decide. My gut instinct is to call this a clear winner though.

Which is more than I can say for Give 'Em Hell Malone on the other hand. It's a complete misfire from the Frank Miller boudoir-noir school of modern misinterpretation. It's got a couple of modestly decent turns from Thomas Jane and Ving Rhames, but the plot, lackluster over-direction, cartoon bad guys and lousy female lead sink this project fast. There was probably an OK movie buried somewhere in this script, but it needed a much better director/screenwriter to flush it out. It's about a quarter as good as the 5/10 Sin City, if that helps.

Loser.

Neo-noir should in the middle of a renewed heyday right now, given the general state of the things, but the underlying fundamentals of the noir motif seem lost on the current generation of Hollywood writers and filmmakers. As a result, all we get is shite like Give 'Em Hell Malone. They could all take a page from Melville's book (Jean-Pierre that is, not Herman). Melville's '60s crime films took the noir in an entirely different direction than recent filmmakers have opted for, boiling down the traditional tropes of film noir to the barest minimums - fedoras, trench coats and handguns. The dialogue was spare, the violence minimal and the doom...palpable. His greatest works – the loose trilogy of Alain Delon pictures that started with 1967’s Le Samourai, through Le Cercle rouge and his final film, Un flic – are remarkable for their emotional and visual murkiness. Melville famously described his vision for Un flic as being “a colour film in black and white” This sparse vision and pared-down style lent gravity and a gripping cool to his films, something completely missed in the noisy and cluttered direction of modern neo-noirs.

Sooner or later, we'll hopefully find a filmmaker who “gets it” and dials it down rather than up. Film Noir works best in the desperate and quiet world of a protagonist with nowhere to turn. If he isn't screwed by the 15 minute mark, it's just another crime flick.