BEFORE: Closing out the Tom Hardy category tonight, at least for now. I'll admit there are still a few minor films on his IMDB page that I haven't seen, but nothing major, at least until the "Venom" sequel gets released, or another "Mad Max" movie. After tonight I think I've done all the required research.
THE PLOT: The 47-year-old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia and comes to be haunted by his violent past.
AFTER: I feel like I got sucker-punched for the second night in a row. Naturally when I saw that Tom Hardy was cast as Al Capone, I got excited. De Niro did such a great job playing the legendary Chicago mobster in "The Untouchables", what other great things can I expect from Tom Hardy's version? Honestly, I should have kept my expectations VERY low.
Patton Oswalt had a routine in his "No Reason to Complain" comedy special that was in reaction to Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ", that only focused on the last day of Jesus' life, when the Bible says he was being tortured and crucified. Removed from the context of the miracles he (allegedly) performed and other good works, Oswalt compared this to a film being pitched about Albert Einstein, but the filmmaker only wanted to portray a day in the famous scientist's life when he had bad stomach flu and was just sitting on the toilet with a bad case of diarrhea.
THAT is what "Capone" reminds me of, because it's all about the final year of Capone's life, after being released from prison, but his mind and body have been badly damaged by years of syphilis and gonorrhea, causing reduced mental capacity and dementia. At this point in his life, Capone had the IQ of a child, and his wife had petitioned for his release based on his reduced mental state. So he only served 8 years in prison (in both Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and Alcatraz, though this film makes no mention of Alcatraz) and then was released for medical treatment in Baltimore. Johns Hopkins turned him down, but he received care at Union Memorial Hospital in 1939. In 1940 he retired to an estate in Palm Island, Florida, and was one of the first patients treated with penicillin in 1942 once it was approved for mass production - but it was too late to reverse the damage to his brain.
And so I find myself watching a movie from Capone's POV, but the obvious problem with that is that of the unreliable narrator, we can't be sure what (or who) is real under this scenario, and what (or who) is a hallucination. From a filmmaker's perspective, this is a great opportunity to pull a "Fight Club" or "Sixth Sense" scenario, and I was all ready for that sort of thing. I think they only did it once, but I could be wrong, because the plotline here was so hard to follow. One particular character simply could not have been a hallucination through the ENTIRE film, because at one point another character calls him on the phone and asks him to come down to Florida to visit - he had to be REAL at that point, right?
But there are other extended fantasy sequences as well - if I'm reading this right, and I'm not sure that I am. The whole scene where Capone (wearing a bathrobe and an adult diaper, and a carrot in his mouth in place of a cigar) carries a gold tommy-gun and wanders through his Florida estate, killing his own men - that never happened, right? I think we would have heard about it if it had. Other scenes where Capone soils himself or has an "accident" in the bed overnight are more believable, yet quite unnecessary and also disgusting. Look, many people get older and lose control of their bowels, it's a sad fact of life, but that doesn't mean I want to see it happen in a movie.
All of the subplots, about the FBI watching Capone and his family, the money that he claims to have stashed away but can't seem to recall where, and the illegitimate son back in Chicago that he can't seem to connect with - they all go exactly nowhere.
This brings up the fact that "Capone" was directed by Josh Trank, the man who figuratively crapped the bed with the release of the 2015 "Fantastic Four" movie. (Yeah, I probably should have checked that before watching...). Well, he's done it again, now he's ruined the Al Capone story - what would have been the harm in casting Tom Hardy and then doing a film about the more significant moments in Capone's career, when he was a younger, scrappier, up-and-coming mobster? Why not SHOW the St. Valentine's Day Massacre actually happening, rather than just hearing about it in a radio teleplay that the older Capone happens to be listening to? (The general rule is "show, don't tell", Josh...). What point is made by depicting a notorious historical figure as a sad, old, babbling, incompetent shell of a man?
That's it, Josh Trank is banned from my blog. If they can ban Trump from Facebook and Twitter, then I can ban Trank from the Movie Year. (Enjoy spending time with "He Who Shall Not Be Named".). If there's any silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, as a result this film was kept out of theaters. "Capone" was the #2 film on iTunes during the first few days of release, and made $2.5 million from digital sales in 10 days, but then it seems the word got out, because those sales figures dropped very quickly. I caught it on AmazonPrime, but I don't think there's much buzz about this film circulating now that it's awards season.
There's one last chance for relevance, however - it's story about an older, mentally-challenged former criminal who's retired to his Florida estate after prison. He roams the halls of his mansion and sits outside looking at gaudy Greek statues, surrounded by his wife and sons and other family, who have to change his diaper while he rants incoherently and threatens the staff. With any luck, this is the future for Donald Trump. This, and the depiction of Al Capone singing along (horribly off-key) with the Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz" are the only reasons I'm awarding any points at all today.
Also starring Linda Cardellini (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), Matt Dillon (last seen in "The House That Jack Built"), Al Sapienza (last seen in "xXx: Return of Xander Cage"), Kathrine Narducci (last seen in "Bad Education"), Gino Cafarelli (ditto), Noel Fisher (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Mason Guccione (last seen in "Night School"), Jack Lowden (last seen in "Fighting with My Family"), Kyle MacLachlan (last seen in "The House with a Clock in Its Walls"), Josh Trank, Neal Brennan (last seen in "Get Him to the Greek"), Edgar Arreola, Manuel Fajardo Jr., Rose Bianco (last seen in "Bad Boys for Life"), Tilda Del Toro, Wayne Pére (last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), and archive footage of Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr and Margaret Hamilton.
RATING: 2 out of 10 hungry crocodiles
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