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Reviews 58% 100+ Ratings Audience Score Notorious gangster Al Capone (Rod Steiger) begins his career as a low-level thug, but by knowing whom to betray and whom to reward, he becomes the ...
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- Tom Hardy plays "Scarface" Al Capone in a film that's far from the usual depiction of the mob legend.
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By Jim Vejvoda
Updated: Oct 23, 2020 3:25 am
Posted: May 11, 2020 4:00 pm
With theaters closed, Vertical Entertainment and Redbox Entertainment have teamed up to release Capone as a home premiere on VOD release on May 12th with an on-demand 48-hour rental.
In his first feature film since 2015’s Fantastic Four, director Josh Trank documents the sad, slow decline of a once mighty king in Capone. Anyone expecting this to be a Tommy Guns-blazing crime epic a la The Untouchables may be stunned to find a methodically paced character study that owes more to psychological and body horror than to pulpy gangster flicks. While the movie acknowledges the existence of that larger-than-life crime boss, this is about what happens to Al Capone long after his Prohibition glory days and subsequent incarceration, as the neurosyphilis he’s long had finally ravages him beyond any hope of recovery.
This is not an Al Capone we’ve ever seen on screen before, but it’s one that true crime aficionados like myself have been curious to see explored in a drama. For mob buffs and those who enjoy character studies, Capone offers an intimate, sometimes challenging look at one of America’s most notorious figures. But the film’s own narrow focus and drawing room play-style approach could turn off those general viewers who might normally check out a movie about the original “Scarface” and expect to find something less niche. While there are a few scenes here of Al Capone wielding a Tommy Gun, he’s dressed in adult diapers and lost in a mental fog while doing it.
Instead, Capone repeatedly shows Al -- or “Fonzo” as he’s called throughout (indeed, his wife Mae at one point says the name “Al” is not said in their home anymore) -- in an eroding mental and physical state, whether it’s hallucinating seeing figures from his past or losing bladder control. Trank has expressed a fascination with radical changes in the human body and how people cope with them before in both Chronicle and Fantastic Four, so Capone seems a natural (and grounded) extension of that peculiar interest. But the film -- which Trank also scripted and edited -- doesn’t necessarily offer much new information with each sad spectacle of seeing the king of the underworld brought so low, and the plot itself is fairly thin.
Set almost entirely within the confines of his Florida compound during the last year of his life, Capone sees “Fonzo” struggling to recall where he hid $10 million in ill-gotten gains somewhere on the estate while figures from his literal and figurative past revisit him. Fonzo wants to know where the loot is, as do his family members - who will be left with nothing once he dies - and the Feds, who are still stalking him years after he was released from prison early due to illness. But the lost loot is just a McGuffin as the focus of the movie really is on watching a sick man grow increasingly sicker while those around him do what they can to either help or exploit him.
This is where things get tricky for the movie, though, as Capone is at its best and most involving when we’re lost in Al’s reveries with him. He literally hobbles along through the dark, unsure of what’s real and what isn’t, but the movie can also confuse the viewer by cutting back and forth between Al’s reality and the movie’s reality. It’s a fine line to walk between artsy obfuscation and unnecessary plot convolutions, and Capone doesn’t always strike the right balance. Still, it’s intriguing to see this fresh approach with a historical figure that’s been the subject of dozens of movies and TV shows over the years.
As Capone, Tom Hardy gives one of his most Actor-y performances, one that ranges from scenery-chewing to incredibly nuanced, sometimes even within the same scene. It may take a bit for viewers to adjust to the makeup job and Hardy’s affected gravelly, mumbly speaking voice, both of which may call to mind a Dick Tracy villain (but seeing as how Capone inspired Dick Tracy villains like Big Boy Caprice, that may be strangely fitting). His Fonzo is pitiable, but there are flashes of the dangerous brute who once ruled Chicago like a king; the point of the movie and Hardy’s highly physical performance is to show how far the mighty have fallen. It’s far from subtle, and will likely prove divisive to viewers, but he’s the most magnetic element in the film whenever he’s onscreen. Co-stars Linda Cardellini and Matt Dillon lend able support, but this is definitely The Tom Hardy Show.
Josh Trank’s somber, small-scale drama is not the guns-blazing Al Capone biopic some gangster movie fans might be expecting, but it’s a curiosity that nevertheless demands a look-see for a fresh take on a crime legend whose most notorious exploits have been retold many times already. Capone seems destined to become a cult film, as it’s part charact...
May 12, 2020 · It casts Hardy as a middle-aged, syphilitic and physically deteriorating Al Capone, released from prison on tax evasion charges and eking out his final stretch in a Florida mansion surrounded by swampland.
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May 12, 2020 · ‘Capone’ Review: The Gangster as Unhygienic Hero. Tom Hardy plays Al Capone as a boogeyman bloated with body fluids. Share full article. Tom Hardy in “Capone.” Alan Markfield/Vertical...
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May 12, 2020 · Capone Movie Review: Tom Hardy at His Most Maximalist. Capone Features Tom Hardy at His Most Maximalist. By Alison Willmore, a Vulture film critic. The Al Capone biopic may not be the...
May 11, 2020 · Capone review – Tom Hardy entertainingly feral as a gangster at the end of the road. Fantastic Four director Josh Trank has created a strange, bitter-flavoured account of the celebrated mafioso...
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