Al Capone is one of the most legendary mobsters in American history. However, of what we see depicted of him, especially on screen, concerns his “glory” days. The end of his life is rarely spoken of. Enter Josh Trank, who had long yearned to make Fonzo, a biopic of Capone that looked at his end days. Now, re-titled Capone, it comes out this week (specifically on Tuesday) and is pretty out there. With a performance from Tom Hardy that’s all in on the sometimes bizarre premise, he’s returned to the sort of work that he broke through with in Bronson. This will almost certainly prove divisive, but for me, I found it compelling enough to worthy of a recommendation. The film is a look at the last year in the life of notorious gangster Al Capone (Hardy). At 47 years old, Capone has gone from someone who terrorized Chicago to a feeble man, his mind rotted and warped by a combination of syphilis and dementia, exacerbated by his decade in jail. Now released to live out his days down in Florida, his brain plays tricks on him, mixing his past with the present. As his wife Mae Capone (Linda Cardellini), along with some family and friends, care for him, the FBI surveils. Running through Capone’s mind, besides some utterly bizarre memories, is a fuzzy notion that he’s hidden millions of dollars. The government and fellow mobsters want that money, though how much of that is just figments of his imagination? By the end, you’ll find out, though that ultimately isn’t the focus here. Trank writes and directs (as well as edits), with cinematography by Peter Deming. El-P composed the score. Rounding out the cast are Matt Dillon, Noel Fisher, Mason Guccione, Jack Lowden, Kyle MacLachlan, Kathrine Narducci, and more. Tom Hardy goes gonzo to play Fonzo. Only sometimes decipherable, Hardy really leans into the decrepit nature of the syphilis ridden Capone. Acting under heavy makeup and clearly portraying a shell of the gangster’s former self, it’s really a sight to behold. Josh Trank asks a lot of him, but Hardy is up to it, for sure. Trank’s direction is pretty solid, though his script is all over the place, sometimes bordering on the incomprehensible (potentially purposefully), so an actor of Hardy’s level was required. The rest of the cast is in his shadow, but that’s likely by design. It’s hard […]