Josh Trank proved to be a spark in a bottle with his directorial debut with the surprising and unconventional found-footage flick, Chronicle, back in 2012. He was then brought on board to give the Fantastic Four another shot with Fantastic Four (or Fant4stic) back in the late summer of 2015, hoping to reinvigorate the property and have it possibly connect with other comic-book movie franchise (i.e. X-Men). Unfortunately, the Fantastic Four movie we saw didn’t seem represent the agreement that Trank and 20th Century Fox had at the time. What ever story you want to believe, there were a lot of awful stories about the production of that movie, which then led Disney to kind of “boot” Trank off one of their Star Wars spinoffs that was in development. Soon after that, Josh Trank sort of disappeared, that is until in 2016 he was going to write, direct and even edit a movie tiled Fonzo, starring Tom Hardy as the infamous Al Capone, although it was a project that got delayed the start of production. All we kept getting out of this movie were still images but there was a never a confirmed release date. Luckily, the studio and Josh Trank made the decision for Capone to be put on VOD, because there was no telling how well it could have done in theaters. Capone might be one of the strangest, yet fascinating experiences you’ll have watching a movie. It’s not great, like at all, but there’s something about how outrageously bizarre it is, that makes it sightly enjoyable.
Instead of being a traditional biopic on Al Capone, Capone focuses on the final days of his life, at the age of 47, just 10 years after being in prison, who then starts suffering from dementia and relives his past through tormenting memories.
Al Capone is a character that’s ripe for the big screen. While not a great guy, necessarily, this is a very interesting character to do a biopic on, and getting a world class talent like Tom Hardy to portray the infamous gangster should be a no brainer. It should also be worth mentioning that Tom Hardy is one of Hollywood’s best working actor. He can play the tough guy better than almost anyone else, yet still carry a charismatic nature simultaneously. He’s a likable badass, and nobody can do it better than Tom Hardy. However, while Tom Hardy looks and feels like Al Capone, his overall performance comes across as odd, yet so absorbing at the same time. If you thought you couldn’t understand him as Bane, then you’re really not going to understand a thing with him Al Capone.
The character is constantly verbalizing gibberish and murmuring, all with a big fat cigar or a carrot (yes, a carrot) in his mouth. His performance is outlandishly over the top and down right unbelievable, however, it’s such an odd and quirky performance that it makes the experience oh so entrancing. One aspect that makes it worth it is the makeup done on Tom Hardy is pretty spectacular. The attention to detail on the hair loss, the scar on his face and the look of his skin deteriorating was so impressive, that we were actually witnessing Al Capone himself. The makeup is so spot on that it shares a great companion with the makeup done on Daniel-Day Lewis in Lincoln. Quality aside, the makeup can not be overlooked.
It’s challenging to review to Capone because one of its biggest problems, as a movie, is that it’s a bit tonally inconsistent and that problem was very noticeable during certain placements of the movie. Because of how odd and funny Tom Hardy’s performance is, it was challenging to judge this movie as a comedy or a heavy drama. It’s daring for Josh Trank so approach a “biopic” from such a different angle, but the movie never really figures out what it wants to be because everything, from it’s performances or narrative just comes across as funny, when may not have been intentional. The overall construction of Capone comes across as sluggish and almost uninspiring because the focus of this movie felt very disordered and not as interesting as it might have wanted to be.
All of these issues aside, Capone is a very entertaining movie from start to finish. While it’s performances and narrative are disjointed, you will not be able to take your eyes off one frame of this strange and almost unorthodox movie. Maybe the intention for Capone was to be freakishly off-putting and zany, and maybe that wasn’t the goal at all, but the execution of it just comes across that way. Capone is an unusual movie that’s going to come across as abnormal to any casual movie goer that sits down and watches it. Nevertheless, the oddness and wackiness of Capone make the movie worth the nearly two hour movie.
My grade for Capone: C-
Zane's take at the Cinema's 