"Capone" is a Snoozefest Gangster Flick That Could Use a Little More Kick
DISCLAIMER: IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 15, YOU SHOULD ASK YOUR PARENTS IF YOU ARE ALLOWED, IF THEY SAY NO, IT MEANS NO!
37/100 “sour”
By: Keaton Marcus
Who wants to see notorious gangster Al Capone living out the last of his days wearing adult diapers and drooling all over the place? No one. Not one single soul, I guarantee you, has a desire to see the toughest criminal around at his most vulnerable. With Josh Trank's Capone, we get a sneak peek of what Al's life was like after his mobster days, living the last year of his life in Florida with his family under government watch. The film is terrible, a snoozefest gangster flick with only Tom Hardy's committed performance as the title character to save it from being a total disaster. What's quite awful is the editing, done by Trank himself, and the many unnecessary dream sequences that plague the film. And what is with the poop? Capone wears a diaper and constantly poops himself. I get that this was a part of his later life, but did they really need to show it with such detail? To say one thing about it: it was gross.
Like I briefly explained up there, this film does not take place in Al's criminal times. The movie tells the story after, with Capone's brain rotting from dementia as he lives out the rest of his days in Florida with his wife (an underused Linda Cardellini) and family. However, it's under one condition: he must be under surveillance by the government, who suspects that he's tucked away 10 million dollars. As Al forgets almost everything about his life, he begins to have frightful memories about his brutal past and criminal life. I mean it does sound a little intriguing, but when I heard they were making a Capone biopic starring Tom Hardy, I got excited about a no-holds-barred, Godfather-type flick, instead, we got a dull drama that rarely entertains.
The cast, fortunately, was solid enough. Tom Hardy, who's completely flawless for the role, does a fantastic job as America's most notorious gangster. He nails every guttural growl and croaky sentence coming out of his mouth. In fact, Mr. Hardy is so excellent that it makes your throat hurt. That's quite similar to what Joaquin Phoenix's laugh did to you in Joker, but at least that film knew how to keep an audience invested. If only Hardy's performance was in a better movie. The talented and criminally underrated Linda Cardellini plays Capone's wife, Mae, and while her role had serious potential, it never panned out well enough. Unfortunately, despite decent acting, a big problem I had was the lack of brutality, not enough gore for this kind of film.
There was some weird stuff in the movie, but compared to more superior installments in the genre, this was an R-rated gangster movie on training wheels. In fact, the only time Hardy's Capone actually got to shoot anybody was in a dream sequence. But to make it unintentionally hilarious was him wearing a diaper and firing with a golden Tommy gun. Tacky, and uncomfortable to watch. Yes, I know this was supposed to be a calmer, more psychological movie, but the film didn't even do that for me. Capone is completely devoid of the tension, and suspense that would have kept me on board. To put it in perspective, the flick clocks at just 103 minutes, but it feels longer than The Irishman. And that was 250 minutes long. You'll suffer from boredom about 40 minutes through this tired exercise, and though it's far from the worst you've seen, it ain't worth watching. Not even during the quarantine.
The final opinion is: Capone features a solid performance from Tom Hardy, but this boredom-laden crime biopic suffers from uneven execution and a lack of tension.
