Film

Chopper

Name: Chopper
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Released: 2000
Cast: Eric Bana, Vince Colosimo, Simon Lyndon, David Field, Dan Wyllie

Crime
Biopic
Very dark

Andrew Dominik's brutal portrait of Mark 'Chopper' Read, Australia's most fearless and terrifying criminal, told with gallows humour and genuine affection. Eric Bana disappears into this charismatic monster with unsettling ease. It's a film about violence that doesn't flinch, but it's also funny—darkly, dangerously funny. For those who want their crime stories weird and uncompromising.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a sharp, unflinching character study where a repellent man's vanity and charm keep you watching, and where Eric Bana's performance does most of the talking.

Skip it if you need likeable heroes or a clear moral arc, since the film stays close to its subject's self-regard and rarely steps back to judge him for you.

What it asks of you: Ninety-four minutes of blunt, often brutal scenes, with a steady gaze rather than a rush, and it expects you to sit with discomfort without much relief.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

In Cold Blood1967

Truman Capote's adaptation of his own masterpiece, a chilling account of a real murder that invented the true-crime narrative. Richard Brooks directs with surgical precision. Essential viewing for anyone serious about crime cinema.

But Methodical to the point of distance. There's no soundtrack, no dramatic crescendos—just people and facts. Some find it glacial.

Once Upon a Time in America1984

Sergio Leone's four-hour meditation on friendship, violence, and American mythology. A portrait of criminals who are also fully human, flawed and yearning. Operatic and intimate at once. A masterpiece about how we become ourselves.

But Deliberately paced. Long. The narrative is fractured across decades. It requires patience and genuine attention.

A Prophet2009

Jacques Audiard's portrait of a young man's transformation inside prison. Like Chopper, it's about charisma and the seductive logic of violence, but with more formal ambition. Taut, hypnotic, and absolutely gripping throughout.

But Subtitled. The prison world is claustrophobic and relentless—there's no relief, no humour. Punishing to watch.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Chopper

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

Both films understand that charisma is a performance, and that violence and entertainment are uncomfortably close. Both use humour to seduce you into sympathising with someone you shouldn't.

Shane Black's meta-textual crime comedy about the slippage between real violence and movie violence, starring Robert Downey Jr. as a charming thief turned actor. It has Chopper's gallows humour and charisma-as-camouflage, but approaches it as farce. The connection is the idea that narratives lie, that people perform themselves into existence, and that criminals and actors aren't that different.

But Violently self-aware. The narrator constantly breaks frame to comment on the plot. If you want straightforward storytelling, this will feel exhaustingly clever-clever.

Mean Streets1973

Scorsese's portrait of small-time criminals in Little Italy, where violence erupts from everyday friendship. Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro are magnetic. It's the spiritual ancestor of every crime film about charisma and moral descent that followed.

But Shaggy and sometimes unfocused. The plot meanders. Some sequences feel more like jazz improvisation than narrative cinema.

Kalifornia1993

A road movie with David Duchovny and Brad Pitt as two men with nothing in common forced together. Pitt gives a genuinely terrifying performance as a charming drifter. It understands how charisma and danger are inseparable.

But The third act feels like it's working out a different film. Some tonal shifts feel unearned rather than intentional.

American Animals2018

Evan Keeling's brilliant hybrid: part narrative film, part documentary, following real college kids who planned an audacious heist. It's about how people mythologise themselves and how cinema and real life collide. Stylish and genuinely clever.

But The tonal experiment doesn't always land. It can feel like a good idea that sometimes overshadows the actual story being told.

Sexy Beast2001

Jonathan Glazer's hallucinogenic debut about an expatriate gangster in Spain. Ben Kingsley is a force of nature as violence incarnate. The film has a painterly oddness, a dreamlike formal control that's completely its own thing.

But Slow-burn and strange. Not a conventional crime narrative at all. Some will find it pretentious or impenetrable.

The Drop2014

Michael R. Harris's lean, bitter portrait of a Brooklyn bartender and a stray dog, starring Tom Hardy in a quiet, haunting performance. It's about neighbourhoods and loyalty and the small humiliations that precede violence.

But Deliberately understated. Nothing big happens. It's all implication and mood. Some find that unbearably slow.

Johnny Handsome1989

Walter Hill's weird crime fable about a small-time crook who gets a second chance after prison. It's pulpy and strange and formally ambitious in ways that shouldn't work but do. John Lithgow is extraordinary as the obsessed detective.

But The premise sounds silly (his face is surgically reconstructed). The film earns it, but many won't stay long enough to care.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford2007

Both are Australian/Dominik films about real men who became legendary through violence. Both examine the seductive power of charisma in the mouths of dangerous people. Both understand that charisma is often camouflage for something hollow underneath.

Andrew Dominik (the director of Chopper) made this haunting meditation on obsession and the worship of violence. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck explore the relationship between a legendary outlaw and his acolyte. It's a film about mythology and murder and how we construct narratives around killers.

But Long, elegiac, and deliberately slow. The cinematography is painterly. It's a tone poem about violence, not a thriller. Many will find it ponderous.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford poster

Bad Lieutenant1992

Both films are intimate portraits of charismatic men who are fundamentally damaged and dangerous. Both refuse to make their subjects sympathetic in conventional ways. Both understand that violence and charm are weapons used by the same person, in the same moment.

Abel Ferrara's nocturnal descent into a corrupt cop's psyche, starring Harvey Keitel at his most exposed. It's about moral collapse and the thin line between law enforcement and criminality. Shot with a feverish, confessional intensity. Chopper's Australian brutality filtered through American Catholic guilt.

But Genuinely difficult to watch. Graphic, degrading, sometimes unwatchable. Ferrara offers no comfort and no redemption. It's punishing cinema.