Chopper

Australian actor Eric Bana is Mark Chopper Read, a legendary criminal who wrote his best-selling autobiography, “From the Inside”, while serving a murder sentence in prison. Beginning in the blue-washed light of a maximum security Melbourne prison, Chopper establishes his dominance with the impulsive knifing of a fellow prisoner. Vacillating between violence and regret, Chopper apologies to his victim, but his good mate Jimmy (Simon Lyndon) later retaliates against. Finally released from prison, the heavily-tattooed Chopper has lost the better part of both of his ears, as well as the ability to make any distinction between his own made-up stories and reality. At a nightclub with his prostitute girlfriend, Tanya (Kate Beahan), he runs into Neville (Vince Colosimo), an old victim who had limped from the attack but now glitters in drug-funded gold. In his paranoia, Chopper connects rumors of a new contract on his life to Neville, Tanya, and his old mate Jimmy, to whom he pays a visit and discovers a man rotting from drug abuse. Alternately wickedly funny and grotesque, “Chopper” gives no easy answer to the question of Chopper Read’s motives, but his method is clear: "Ya bash people for no reason, just to get a name for yourself’.