The biopic is a safe Hollywood bet that studios, producers, and filmmakers love. Take a historical figure and/or someone well known, cast a well-liked dramatic actor and fill the script with the typical beats of rising up from mediocrity or poverty, show their struggle and talent, their triumphs, the moments where they become who we know them to be, and then their downfall or their age.
This is a tried and true formula that the movie industry loves, and every year, there's at least one of these, usually about music artists, but also sometimes about athletes or other outstanding pop culture figures, and in some cases, criminals. "Capone" with Tom Hardy directed by Josh Trank follows none of these familiar beats and doesn't play to any of these well-worn expectations.
I think one of the reasons this movie has so many low ratings is due to viewers who love The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, and the long line of classics in the gangster subgenre having their expectations subverted when they encountered a slower paced, methodical, sad, strangely comedic, offbeat portrayal of a feared member of America's criminal underworld at his lowest point: desperately trying to hang on to the man he used to be while suffering from the ravages of Syphilis.
A lot of people love to see gangsters get away with crime, rise to power, and to see a film that glamorizes a life of crime, and that's not what you get here. Maybe this was misadvertised, but I saw a performance from Tom Hardy that captured the pain and frustration of being trapped in a body that's betraying you, all the while surrounded by people you're not sure you can trust, with the memories of the past turning from pleasant to nightmarish in the space of a second.
The film is for the most part beautifully shot with sometimes an almost horror-movie level of suspense, and the idea of what is and isn't real is played with, bringing you into Capone's mindset in his last few months. It's not a perfect film, and is slow moving at points, but Hardy's performance always reels everything back in. The make-up on him is incredible, and you can't tell me that you see Hardy here. So often anymore, we see moviestars, but not an actor disappearing into a part.
One of the main flaws of the film for me was that it does expect the viewer to have a firm grasp on who Capone was, what he did, and how he rose to power, because none of that content that you'd see in a typical gangster film is there. It might have been nice to have more scenes of Hardy as Capone in his prime, but the idea that it only gives you a few memories brings you into the headspace he's in: he wants desperately to be that man again but can't.
Al Capone was a violent man and unforgiving to many, but this movie does a great job of painting him as sympathetic, that showing that even the worst people have family that can be agonized from watching someone they love deteriorate right in front of their eyes.
There could've been more of the other perspective explored, how the FBI or perhaps the families of his rivals and victims viewed him, to balance the perspective we see in the film, and a few questions the film poses, such as whether or not his dementia was an act the whole time or not could've been explored more deeply, but I feel that everything in this was made as an effort to defy the formula and try a different approach.
Go into this expecting to see some outstanding character-acting from Hardy, and not expecting a gangster movie. It's not a tribute to that, it's not a glorification, there's plenty of other movies that fetishize outlaws for that. I give this points for trying something new in exploring a dark chapter in the life an American public figure. This approach might not have been perfect, but I hope that it encourages more creativity and more of a boldness to move away from formula in the future.
This is a tried and true formula that the movie industry loves, and every year, there's at least one of these, usually about music artists, but also sometimes about athletes or other outstanding pop culture figures, and in some cases, criminals. "Capone" with Tom Hardy directed by Josh Trank follows none of these familiar beats and doesn't play to any of these well-worn expectations.
I think one of the reasons this movie has so many low ratings is due to viewers who love The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, and the long line of classics in the gangster subgenre having their expectations subverted when they encountered a slower paced, methodical, sad, strangely comedic, offbeat portrayal of a feared member of America's criminal underworld at his lowest point: desperately trying to hang on to the man he used to be while suffering from the ravages of Syphilis.
A lot of people love to see gangsters get away with crime, rise to power, and to see a film that glamorizes a life of crime, and that's not what you get here. Maybe this was misadvertised, but I saw a performance from Tom Hardy that captured the pain and frustration of being trapped in a body that's betraying you, all the while surrounded by people you're not sure you can trust, with the memories of the past turning from pleasant to nightmarish in the space of a second.
The film is for the most part beautifully shot with sometimes an almost horror-movie level of suspense, and the idea of what is and isn't real is played with, bringing you into Capone's mindset in his last few months. It's not a perfect film, and is slow moving at points, but Hardy's performance always reels everything back in. The make-up on him is incredible, and you can't tell me that you see Hardy here. So often anymore, we see moviestars, but not an actor disappearing into a part.
One of the main flaws of the film for me was that it does expect the viewer to have a firm grasp on who Capone was, what he did, and how he rose to power, because none of that content that you'd see in a typical gangster film is there. It might have been nice to have more scenes of Hardy as Capone in his prime, but the idea that it only gives you a few memories brings you into the headspace he's in: he wants desperately to be that man again but can't.
Al Capone was a violent man and unforgiving to many, but this movie does a great job of painting him as sympathetic, that showing that even the worst people have family that can be agonized from watching someone they love deteriorate right in front of their eyes.
There could've been more of the other perspective explored, how the FBI or perhaps the families of his rivals and victims viewed him, to balance the perspective we see in the film, and a few questions the film poses, such as whether or not his dementia was an act the whole time or not could've been explored more deeply, but I feel that everything in this was made as an effort to defy the formula and try a different approach.
Go into this expecting to see some outstanding character-acting from Hardy, and not expecting a gangster movie. It's not a tribute to that, it's not a glorification, there's plenty of other movies that fetishize outlaws for that. I give this points for trying something new in exploring a dark chapter in the life an American public figure. This approach might not have been perfect, but I hope that it encourages more creativity and more of a boldness to move away from formula in the future.