‘Capone': Intimately Grotesque Biopic of A Famous Gangster's Final Days [Review]

I do feel bad for writer/director Josh Trank, who may either be the unluckiest filmmaker around or the biggest douchebag imaginable — you take a guess — there are two sides to this story. His “comeback” movie, “Capone,” comes hot off the heels of the disastrous production of “The Fantastic Four,” which had many reshoots and supposed “erratic behavior” on the part of Trank, after his director’s cut was completely decimated into a whole new studio-approved edit. When finally released, “Fantastic Four” bombed at the box-office and earned an embarrassing 9% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Al Capone’s syphilitic and dementia-ridden state is at the core of Trank’s “comeback vehicle”— a wild, messy, and surreal fever dream, which has Capone slowly losing control of his mind, and bowels movements, in the most bizarrely inappropriate ways.

Tackling the last days of a syphilitic and debilitated Al Capone, and set sometime between 1946 and 1947, “Capone” is very much a gangster film, but one about post-crime ageism. “The Irishman” this ain’t, but who seriously thought this film would ever soar to those kinds of Scorsesian heights? Although the film doesn’t lack in ambition, it can’t truly form into a coherent whole. Its plotless nature makes it an honorable curiosity, but its refusal to truly find an identity turns out to be its ultimate flaw.

“Capone” attempts to suck you into the deranged psyche of the famous mobster through surreal dream/hallucination sequences filled with sexuality, violence, and sheer morbidness. More intriguingly, however, we are never really sure if what’s happening on-screen is dream or reality. This is meant to place the viewer inside Capone’s disturbing mind and makes him the most unreliable narrator you can have to tell this story.

Of course, having Tom Hardy play the lead in your movie is a major advantage and the venerable actor opts for an over-the-top performance here, as his Capone rots away by moaning and grunting all around his massive Florida estate. If anything, Hardy must have realized that the screenplay lacked the subtleties needed to make this a truly great movie, so why not just ham it up and revel in the B-movie grooviness of it all.

The climax, the most graphic and shocking bout of violence in the film, is a total stunner. Showcasing a state of mind gone rogue, steeped into anarchy, and ravenously unleashed, it encapsulates the spirit of a movie driven by Hardy’s performance and Trank’s gruesomely grotesque imagery. “Capone” might not be what many expected from a movie about the notorious gangster, but that’s precisely why it somewhat, against all odds, succeeds. [B-]

CAPONE is out now on all major VOD platforms, distributed by Vertical Entertainment.