Nicolas Winding Refn directs this stylized, semi-fictionalized account of Michael Peterson — rechristened Charles Bronson by Tom Hardy's ferociously committed performance — a young man whose seven-year sentence for a botched post-office robbery ballooned into three decades of near-continuous solitary confinement after his violent, theatrical outbursts against the prison system. Structured as a surreal, darkly comic stage performance narrated directly to camera, the film treats Bronson's notoriety as a kind of grotesque celebrity self-mythology rather than straightforward biography. Hardy's transformation — physical and psychological — announced him as a major screen presence.