IS 'CHOPPER' TRUE OR NOT?

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

The movie ``Chopper'' runs a disclaimer at the start that informs viewers narrative liberties have been taken and it's not really a biography of its subject, psychopathic Australian criminal turned best-selling memoirist Mark ``Chopper'' Read.

That's because, one presumes, the tales Read wrote in the best sellers that made him something of a media folk hero are not fully verifiable. Considering what the character gets away with in this feature film version of his life, the line separating fiction and nonfiction appears fuzzy indeed.

Not that false notes are at all struck by the film's star, the by-all-accounts mild-mannered television comedian Eric Bana, nor its adapter-director Andrew Dominik, a music-video guy who makes his feature debut with assured tonal control. It's just that, as convincingly as every moment and mood in the movie plays, I believe maybe half of what Read says happened.

The most interesting thing about the character, more so than his presumed imagination, is that for a violent, paranoid lunatic, he's a pretty poignant dude. Capable of slashing a prison antagonist's throat with as little compunction as he'd give to swatting a mosquito, Chopper is a blubbering sucker for remorseful second thoughts.

There's something hilarious about watching Bana, under a crazy quilt of prison tattoos and a Bridget Jones-load of gained weight, apologize with heartfelt profusion to the bleeding victim his character just brutalized. But after the first several stabbings, maimings and shootings (as you might guess, this is not a film for the graphically intolerant), you realize that Chopper really means it, and the anguish of his fatally time-lapsed self-control grows into a uniquely empathetic movie experience.

Not that the guy is ever more pitiable than fearsome. The other quality Bana and Dominik impart most forcefully is that of being trapped in the orbit of a human time bomb who's always ticking. It's not a recommendation, but it is an appreciation of what's been achieved here to acknowledge that the movie just feels threatening from beginning to end.

Whether Chopper, and by extension the picture, is telling the whole truth or not is more nagging than spoiling in the light of these accomplishments. A greater nag, though, is the tertiary way in which Read's influence on Australian culture is examined. The nut claims, dubiously, that he only killed and hurt nasty types who had it coming, and the reactionary wing of his fan base obviously swallows that. But to some, he must represent outlaw/outsider chic, or a sad case made kind of good, or numerous other, culturally specific attractions.

But ``Chopper'' just shows us a monster with a strangely mutated conscience, and what made the real guy so mainstream intriguing goes wanting. This may be a hypocritical attitude from someone in a country that roots for Dr. Lecter, but what can I say? At least I know that Hannibal is totally fictional.

``CHOPPER''

(Not rated: violence, language, nudity, drug use)

The stars: Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, Kate Beahan.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Andrew Dominik, based on books by Mark Brandon Read. Produced by Michele Bennett. Released by First Look Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 37 minutes.

Playing: Nuart, West L.A.

Our rating: Three stars

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Eric Bana plays confessed killer Mark Brandon Read in ``Chopper.''