Tom Hardy plays a fading Capone in a baroque portrait of the gangster's decline
Film Reviews Movie Review
It was probably inevitable that Tom Hardy—that stocky English bulldog of a movie star—would one day slip into the slick wardrobe, blemished skin, and vicious disposition of Al Capone. (Hardy has, like Robert De Niro before him, played his share of real criminals, those roles leading like a trail of bodies to the most notorious of them all.) Yet the Capone that stumbles through nearly every scene of Josh Trank’s baroque postscript of true-crime drama is no longer the Chicago kingpin of headline infamy. His gait rigid, skin spongy with patches of red rash, and voice an indecipherable croak, Fonzo (as everyone calls him) is a shell of himself, withering in premature decay: a fortysomething man with the frail, failing body of someone much older, even as his mind regresses to that of someone much younger. Hardy, in other words, hasn’t been cast for his malleably imposing physique so much as his willingness to diminish it. He looks both big and small, conveying the physicality of someone used to looming over everyone—dwarfing them with the enormousness of his body and enormity of his reputation—who’s now found himself shrinking by the day.
Capone joins a growing list of biographical dramas, like The Happy Prince and Judy, that chronicle only the ignoble final days of their subjects. The film is set in the late 1940s, after Capone’s eight-year prison sentence for tax evasion, and almost entirely within the opulent Florida estate where he spent the remainder of his life, under the care of his ceaselessly loyal wife, Mae (Linda Cardellini). He was, at that point, suffering from severe symptoms of untreated syphilis; his mind and body declining in tandem alongside his disappearing empire, fortune, and pawned belongings. Capone, as we meet him, lives in a fugue state of confusion and paranoia—he’s like the Charles Foster Kane of over-the-hill mobsters, wasting away in luxury. But not all of his problems are in his head: The feds are watching him, hoping to dig up something more damning than the financial crimes for which he served so little time.
This is nothing close to a comprehensive biopic, which is a relief, in theory. There are no flashbacks to the Windy City and little in the way of exposition; besides the crackle of a radio play dramatizing the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, Capone’s life of crime remains unrecounted, its exploits presumed known. In Capone, history asserts itself through ghosts and visions, like a traipse into the ballroom of the glamorous prohibition era—shades of The Shining there—and appearances by an old colleague (Matt Dillon), a composite of various men violently scratched off the boss’ accomplice list. What’s real or not isn’t always clear, because the movie sometimes unfolds from the cloudy perspective of its mentally adrift subject. One might naturally think of The Irishman and its own depiction of time catching up to a fixture of organized crime. But Capone almost plays like a rebuttal to those who insisted Scorsese’s film was too damn long: There’s less power to seeing the pathetic final stretch of a life without the context of everything that came before.
Perhaps the story of someone plummeting from his perch atop the world holds some personal meaning to the writer, director, and editor, who experienced a downfall of his own after the very public, career-torpedoing disaster of making that much maligned Fantastic Four movie. Yet there’s only so much actual drama Trank can wring from these last days, given just how much dementia had overtaken Capone’s mind. If he can barely remember his sins, how can he confront them? Capone ends up mostly emphasizing the corporeal indignities and ironies of his decline: the mighty Scarface puking into a trashcan, loudly shitting his pants during a useless FBI interrogation, and—after a stroke pushes him even further from his heyday fearsomeness—chewing on carrots like a ridiculous cartoon parody of his stogie-chomping self. It’s all the violence of his past revisited upon him through time and disease. (Trank, one might presume, is a David Cronenberg fan, given the amount of body horror he’s now slipped into both the superhero- and gangster-movie genres.)
The FBI’s obsession with monitoring Capone during his last few years might have sprung, on some level, from a cultural exasperation—the public sense that this outsized monster got off way too easy for his years of unspeakable transgression. Capone presents the man’s health problems as a different sort of comeuppance: a reckoning of the mind and body, though not necessarily of the soul. But that doesn’t leave Hardy terribly much to do but dismantle his intimidating presence; it’s a commanding physical performance in search of a richer characterization, of any sense of who Capone was. Somewhere in the middle, his Fonzo stumbles into the bathroom and catches a glimmer of his old, healthy self in the mirror, still looking like a terrifying king among crooks. Maybe Hardy will one day get to play that version of the infamous crime baron. Technology should make that possible, even after he passes the age when the actual Capone couldn’t play the role any longer.
82 Comments
I like that tom Hardy swings big. I mean, he strikes out most of the time, but at least he swings.
I’ll watch this just to find out what’s in his glove compartment.
Yeah, we know what was in the vault…Thanks a lot Geraldo.
Hey! There was nothing in Al Capone’s vault, but it wasn’t Geraldo’s fault!
I was in military public affairs during Iraqi Freedom. In my book, it’s always Geraldo’s fault.
Please let that be the title of his obituary.
I’m not American and while I’m relatively well-versed in your 20th century history, I still don’t “get” Geraldo Riviera, given that everything I hear about him is just blunder after blunder, from the Capone vault to promoting fortune tellers during the Jacob Wetterling case.What I’m asking is: is he the US Piers Morgan?
Kinda yeah. Just a blowhard idiot who is still around for reasons unbeknownst to all.
He’s a promoter, a showman, who should never been put in an actual journalist (using the word generously) role. So yes, Morgan’s probably a good corollary.
I’m sorry, the answer we were looking for was:
As Linda Cardellini projects go, it seems like Dead to Me is probably a better role for her
Linda never gets the respect she deserves.
I’d give it to her.What? I meant the respect she deserves.
Best Velma ever.
The girl next door to end all girls next door. I love her and Anne Hathaway in ‘Brokeback Mountain’.
I think only freaks and geeks fans get how underappreciated she is.
This is how I imagine every casting discussion in Hollywood goes:“Okay, so for the wife-”“Linda Cardellini.”
“And the evil South African-”“Arnold Vosloo.”
“Is Judy Greer not available?”“We already cast her as the quirky friend.”“Shit, alright, Cardellini it is.”
She’s great in the second season of Dead to Me! Just like the first. I’m loving this show, but it’s so stressful to watch.
She is! Both seasons just tighten the screws on the characters so much that it is almost unbearable, and yet also compulsively watchable, largely because of what great chemistry the actresses have
Like so many stories, this one starts: “And then, the tertiary syphilis kicked in.” Seriously though, this is a time in Capone’s life that hasn’t really been explored—it’s usually just a footnote tagged onto the epilogues of other movies about him. He ultimately paid a price that was far more terrible than the justice system could have exacted. Considering how horrific the mental and physical deterioration of tertiary syphilis really is, the electric chair or the gas chamber would have been merciful.This film offers an interesting dilemma for the viewer. How much sympathy do we allow ourselves to offer one of the most ruthless crime lords in American history?
Its not been explored because its kinda dull. He was let out via compassion and died. Or well maybe the time frame isn’t the issue. Its Josh Trank didn’t know how to make it interesting. On the subject of sympathy, I’m not. He is linked to dozens of murders. Falling apart at the end doesn’t make you anything. Its like feeling sorry for Ted Bundy because he had a bad childhood. It sucks but sympathy ends when you senseslessly take a life.
That’s dozens we know of. Any way we look at it, Capone was prolific and noteworthy murderer—whether he did it personally or ordered his minions to carry out his whims, he caused the premature deaths of numerous people. Some, maybe most, were playing the same game and might well have deserved what they got. However, he was pretty indiscriminate when it came to whacking people, so the odds are there were more than a few innocents mixed in with his body count.
One of the seven killed in that garage was just a dude who fixed cars. So not everyone who was killed by Capone was a ruthless gangster. And he did kill people personally, in his youth and famously with that baseball dinner party.
The problem is, Capone’s later life and death is ultimately just a man slowly losing his wits while living as a recluse. Tragic for his family perhaps and not without a certain bitter irony in light of his past, but the reason everyone makes movies about Prohibition and St. Valentine’s Day and him getting nailed for tax evasion is because those are the things that make him interesting as a subject. It sounds like this movie makes the mistake of deciding it’s going to stand out by focusing on the parts of the subject’s life that no one else focuses only to realise too late that the reason no one else focuses on them is that they’re pretty boring, with the result being that we’re just watching a man slowly wither away in a mansion for two hours or so.
If Tommy Lee Jones can make someone feel even a smidge of sympathy for Ty Cobb anything is possible
I’ll be honest, I thought he died in prison. A movie about a guy as horrible as Capone actually being released early because he’d deteriorated to the point where he couldn’t enjoy his freedom just doesn’t sound like much of a story.
I think the main reason for seeing this one will be to witness the spectacle of Tom Hardy portraying slipping into dementia. For those who’ve been lucky enough to not have seen it in person, I’ll just say it’s a nasty process that most people wouldn’t wish on anyone, even someone like Capone.
He’s not even the Englishman to play the best Capone: that honor goes to Stephen Graham in Boardwalk Empire. Although the worst I’ve seen are either Jason Robards or Eric Roberts.
Graham is the best Capone without question.
I’d have to re-watch “The Untouchables” again because I do remember loving DeNiro in that but I think you’re probably right. He (Graham) brought a humor and a lot of nuance to that role.
De Niro was fun but kinda broad. Like the movie itself, shallow but so enjoyable.
“We been on the road for eighteen hours. Let’s sit down, have some chow, and then you and me talk about who dies.”Boardwalk Empire had some problems but Graham as Capone was one of the best parts.
Why has nobody made a good film about Als early years. Killing Big Jim Calaosimo, fighting with Dean O’Bannon who is a fascinating character. No its always Saint Valentines Day Massacre and his fall and apparently shitting yourself and fishing in your pool. There’s an old writing adage that goes if this isn’t the most interesting time in a characters life then why aren’t we watching that?
It’s that old rule of Hollywood: We love watching people shit.
This is the first film in the Incontinent Cinematic Universe
“Do you piss? You will.”
I’d watch it.
Ummmm they kind of did. “Boardwalk Empire”? Covers all of that, and Stephen Graham is great as young Capone.
They did but it was fairly surface level and honestly not that good. Graham was amazing though.
No major argument here. Surface level? True – but he was only a side character in the show. But the parts of that show that did concern Capone, Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, etc., were the best part of that show imo.
Absolutely. The stuff that involved Atlantic City and New York was top notch. The Chicago stuff tended to be on the weaker side. But Graham kept it mostly together through sheer force of will.
Check out Making of the Mob Chicago on Prime I thought it was really good
I wouldn’t mind seeing this, mainly because I want to see what Josh Trank is capable of now that he’s completely divorced from the superhero movie world. I genuinely did like Chronicle (and still do), and Fantastic Four was a clusterfuck from every angle, including his. I’m really just curious to see what he can do with something a little more stripped-down and to the point.
It’s an odd last paragraph to leave this review off. You speak about how grotesque the film is, and you give it a C+, but then you just leave on saying “maybe one day Tom Hardy will be digitally altered to play a young Capone?” Just curious, I guess.
I was kinda rooting against this anyway. I just watched a documentary that more or less should what a dickhead Josh Trank is.
Which one?
That video actually makes me more sympathetic towards Trank. I hadn’t heard the theory that Fox made Fant4stic as essentially a rights grab, but if it’s true, then any director they could’ve hired to make it would be screwed from the start.
A dark gritty body horror Fantastic Four is one of the dumbest ideas ever. Granted, it’s not entirely Trank’s fault. The studio should have never agreed to it.
I figured it was that one. I actually work for that group. More the retrospects and less the politics.
What do you mean by “more retrospects and less politics?” Do they do political videos as well? Or are you referring to Andre’s increasing anti-woke commentary?
Latter. They make a lot of anti sjw videos and whatever they call woke. The sister podcast channel is nothing but that. I’m the guy who writes franchise retrospectives. Like the Terminator one, the canceled DC films one and the Halloween one.
Well, I guess I’m a fan of yours then, because I subscribe to that channel and I really enjoy it. I like the no-bullshit, just-the-facts ma’am approach. And the anti-SJW stuff doesn’t really bother me as much as it would from anywhere else, I think because Andre (is that is name?) is from another country and it’s interesting to get an outsider’s perspective. And let’s face it, there is some agenda-driven schlock out there. The recent Charlie’s Angel’s comes to mind. That said, some people have become a little hyper sensitive to it. Andre’s not COMPLETELY off the rails just yet, in my book anyway. Keep up the great work!
Aw thanks. I’ve been trying to release a long doc on Disney remakes. Darn Mulan delay didn’t help.
And they’re doing a live action Atlantis! Guess they’ve finally burned through their successful material. What’s the sister podcast channel btw
Midnights Edge after dark. Used to be on it before I got too busy. And ironically Atlantis is the one remake I’d be fine with.
Agreed. I’ve always said, it’s the mediocre movies that should be re-made. Not the classics. (Though I understand the money angle.)
Haven’t watched the documentary but some of the interviews tidbits I’ve read from him make him sound like a film student who somehow never realized entertainment is a collaborative process.
Yeah, that’s what I gathered from that recent article about him, too. If he wasn’t firing someone, he was burning a bridge.
*showed
Stephan Graham killed it so dead I’m surprised this actually happened. He didn’t sand off any of his homicidal edges yet the “my buddy” scene wrecks me every single time I watch it.
In an unusual choice, Capone’s name was changed to “Domashev”.
Josh Trank didn’t help Fant4stic that much. He wasn’t the only reason its the Samurai Cop of superhero films but he did play a role.
Well it never helps when the guy charged with directing the movie completely misses the point of the source material and craps out another sorry version of Marvel’s best villain. Fox also just wanting to make a movie so the rights do not expire doesn’t help either. Read anything about Trank and you understand how he sees himself as tortured auteur who is just trying to express his inner darkness. Except he comes off the quintessential millennial whiny, lazy and utterly self obsessed. And these are the puff pieces that are trying to paint a good picture of the man.
It was a disaster in about every conceivable way.
When writing a story, you should always ask yourself “is this the most interesting part of my protagonist’s life?”.If the answer is “No”, stop writing.
I get the fact that a lot of the best historical figures are kind of played out, but the idea of focusing really hard on their miserable, mundane and often really depressing death doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
But then Renee Zellwigger just won an Academy award for that movie where Judy Garland slowly dies, so what do I know?
Well you could argue Garland was interesting at the end, also I heard it was less the movie more the acting.
It doesn’t have to be the most interesting, if it’s something underexamined AND at least somewhat interesting. This fails part II.
Lincoln was concerned with the passing of one amendment, and many would argue wasn’t even the most interesting thing about his life (the assassination being one, his entire ordeal with the Civil War being another). But it still worked as a film because it’s an interesting “slice of life” into all that Lincoln had to endure as president, as well as the trials and tribulations of getting anything passed in Congress.The issue with Capone is that it’s mostly a horror story about a man literally becoming retarded from syphilis. So it’s more of a horror story than anything else, but one that progresses so slowly and with not much of a payoff (he gets euthanized).
“Passing one amendment” is hella burying the lede when the amendment in question dismantled the institution of slavery in America. That brings the drama like crazy.
The amendment is super important to American history but as a slice of Lincoln’s life, it’s no different than passing any other bill or amendment. That’s my point: the most interesting aspect of Lincoln’s life is most definitely not him working with his cabinet to pass the 13th amendment. But the movie Lincoln focused on that aspect, and it was an enthralling movie. So focusing on a “boring” aspect of someone’s life isn’t an issue in a movie. It’s how you present that information.And with Capone, it treats the end of his life like a horror film, albeit a really slow one with no real payoff.
I would argue this movie and Lincoln have the same problem, and its in the expectation that comes with the title. Using a historical figure’s name is an (implied) embodiment of their life- so, there are certain expectations that come from movies that go with just someone’s name. I remember a lot of… we’ll call it surprise… from casual audiences that Lincoln was only about the one bill, and as such, there were people that came away from it disappointed (myself included).
Arguably, it’s a more interesting movie than Capone with a better lead performance and overall better filmmaking, but there’s still a feeling of “false-advertising” (a friend’s words, not mine) when it comes to movies seeming to use biographical monikers, when the story is anything but. I’m saying Lincoln should have been called something else. I’m saying Capone should have been called something else, and I’m saying Steve Jobs *barely* gets away with it.
The story about Trank on Polygon is just a textbook illustration of priviledge.
https://www.polygon.com/2020/5/5/21246679/josh-trank-capone-interview-fantastic-four-chronicle
He has zero qualifications but makes connections and is supported by his parents, gets the world handed to him, fails, and gets a second chance.
And then days later Polygon publishes one of the relatively few positive reviews of the movie. Hmm.
how’s the soundtrack? i heard el-p did it.
I thought it was better than a “C+.” It’s dark and weird with a mixture of the Godfather and The Shining.
Is anyone else seeing a chubby Stephen Miller in that first photo?Chilling.
This movie was like a David Lynch movie, but done by the guy that did Fantastic Four.
Trank directed but didn’t write the film, correct? Chronicle was good, but probably a bit overhyped; F4ntastic was garbage and toasted his career, but the movie released was obviously different from the movie he had intended to make.It seems like Capone is a potentially interesting film, but fails to dig deep enough. How does this inform our collective understanding of Trank? Is it worth hoping for him to continue to get chances to return to the good graces of Hollywood? Or is he not talented or interesting enough a filmmaker for us to bother really rooting for him?