America had Al Capone; England, the Kray brothers and Australia -proving once and for all its antipodean sense of humor - has Mark ‘Chopper’ Read.

The son of a devoutly religious mother and a one-time soldier with a fondness for sleeping alongside a loaded gun, Chopper Read dreams of making a name for himself as a legendary crime figure. His journey, however, is towards absurdity. A wisecracking criminal failure, he attains cult status but in the process becomes a parody of all that he aspired to be.

Receiving a stiff sentence for a bungled kidnapping attempt, Chopper finds himself in H Division, the maximum-security section of Melbourne's Pentridge Prison. Reunited with his best friend, Jimmy Loughnan, Chopper attempts to assert himself by re-igniting a power struggle for the Division; a tactic which wins few admirers. Most scathing of his critics is Keithy George, a hardened criminal  who rules H Division. George dismisses Chopper as a mere ‘show-pony’...a decision he lives to regret.

Justifying his increasingly erratic behavior with a series of lies, rationalizations and distortions, Chopper is finally attacked by his own crew and stabbed by Jimmy who is torn by their deep friendship yet driven by his own need to survive.

Recovered from the assault, but fearing further retribution, Chopper persuades a fellow inmate to slice off his ears to effect a transfer from H Division; an act which again kindles the imagination of a public both repulsed and fascinated by this seemingly fearless felon. His notoriety grows.

Eight years on, Chopper is released; a walking anachronism, driven by resentment and guilt, searching desperately for his hidden enemy and unable to differentiate between fact and fiction. His body and his psyche bear the scars of too many battles. When a situation no longer suits, he simply reinvents it. A one-man arsenal, he freely confesses to now having a ‘green light’ - courtesy of the police - to exterminate 'scum' as he sees fit. The truth may be less glamorous.

Informed that he is now the target of a 'contract', he visits Jimmy, and finds a man ravished by years of drug abuse and failure. Despite the echo of their former friendship, both suspect the other’s motives and Chopper leaves. At Bojangles Nightclub, fate awaits him. In a fit of paranoia, he kills a minor criminal, ‘Sammy the Turk’, but manages to beat the charge by virtue of his now well-honed story telling abilities.

Charged for another offence, he returns to jail, where he writes an exaggerated account of his life and crimes. His book becomes a best seller and Chopper’s original ambition is realized; he emerges a cult figure, with a reputation as Australia’s number one ‘hit man’. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Mark ‘Chopper’ Read is living proof.