Amazon.com reviews for
Chopper (2000) More at IMDbPro »

Chopper (dvd):

Amazon.com video review: Based on the writings of Australian author Mark "Chopper" Read, a real-life criminal who recounts his misdeeds (including the severing of his own ears to win release) in books with titles like How to Shoot Friends and Influence People, Chopper is a stomach-churning spectacle from which you cannot pull away. In the opening scene of Andrew Dominik's vicious first film, Chopper jabs a man's face full of holes with pliers and proceeds to offer him a cigarette while he lies bleeding to death on a prison floor; contrite but obviously mad, he then asks sincerely, "You don't like me much, do you?" Somehow it's grotesquely funny. Shooting in bleached-out blue prison cells and corrosively lit nightclubs and flats, Dominik sets a spare stage for the film's true revelation, standup comic Eric Bana's explosive debut. Reminiscent in scale of Russell Crowe's first lead outing as a sadistic skinhead in Romper Stomper, Bana's performance is at turns fearsome, hilarious, and mesmerizing. --Fionn Meade