Since I didn't see “Bronson” in 2008, the first time I had the chance to see Tom Hardy in a signifcant big-screen role was in “Inception”; and to me he just leapt. This is what I wrote then:

For his team, Cobb already has Arthur, his point man, and he quickly gathers the rest: Ariadne, who will design the dream, Yusef (Dileep Rao), who will administer the drugs, and Eames (Tom Hardy), the forger, who can impersonate important people from Fisher’s world in the dreamscape. It’s both a good team Cobb has assembled and a good team writer-director Christopher Nolan has assembled. Ellen Page is whip-smart. Cotillard is both dreamy-looking lost love and dangerous femme fatale. But I may have been most impressed with Hardy. He steals every scene. The scam is Cobb’s, the whole story is Cobb’s, and everyone seems to channel their energy into these, and his, obsessions; but Hardy suggests for Eames a life outside of this story. We don’t have much to wonder about with Cobb but we have everything to wonder about with Eames.

Is wondering about a character the key to our interest in the character? And when did I (and everyone) begin to think of the Brando comparison? With “Tinker Tailor”? Not with those blonde locks. “Warrior” maybe? Although the movie was a bit cartoonish, and “The Dark Knight Rises” even more so. Maybe in “Lawless”? He grounds a mediocre movie there. I guess it was his quiet more than anything. It was the suggested toughness. Yeah, it was also the lips and the hair. But in his latest, “The Drop,” the comparison gets ridiculous:

Brando in “On the Waterfront” checks out Hardy in “The Drop.”

He's not doing homage, by the way. There are a lot of similarities between Terry Malloy and Bob Saginowski, but the differences are key. Review up soon. Go see it, if you have the chance.