Capone

I admired the film more than I enjoyed it, but it kept my interest throughout despite being a bit of slog at times. It's fascinating. The title 'Capone' invokes the expectation that this was a biopic of the famous gangster, but this isn't that at all. This is something very different, and very deliberately so, but due to the title it's going to confuse and disappoint most people (which is why Trank hated that he had to change it from the original title 'Fonzo' for marketing reasons). There's hardly a reference for this kind of film; it's not a traditional narrative in any sense.

What I keep thinking about is how even most gangster films who pretend to de-glamorize criminals and their lifestyle fail; it's the same problem with the "anti-" war movie that still depicts a rousing, exciting adventure next to the misery and the atrocities and thus defeats its own purpose. Rare is the war or gangster film that actually achieves to show the underlying emptiness; the ugly, banal, vulgar and sad reality that ultimately is what most lives of violence lead towards until the haunting memories are the only thing that remains.

The reason for that is obvious: nobody would watch that kind of film because it would be too bleak. But 'Capone' manages that rare feat: it's bleak - but not bleak enough to turn you off, and it's even often entertaining (in terms of its performances, the fantastic score, the beautiful cinematography). But even though this probably wasn't the film's intention, it still manages to be the ultimate deconstruction of the gangster as an "icon" - more so even than Scorsese's 'Irishman' (though it's nowhere near as good a film).

I liked Capone; it's weird (and I guess you shouldn't watch it unless you like profoundly weird little arthouse films) but this is definitely not a badly made film. I hope Trank continues on this path and makes more strange, personal films - although perhaps of the kind that are a little more accessible.

1h and 43min of Tom Hardy sounding like angry Donald Duck.

Five stars only because of Tom Hardy's performance. Waste of time.

This movie has a very low IMDb rating mainly because many viewers wanted this to be a different movie, perhaps one of Al Capone's whole life. But it isn't, it focuses on the very last year or so when he was at his Florida mansion, his mind mostly childlike, his memory poor, his health failing, and his phobias in full display.

Al Capone's life of crime is pretty well known by anyone who pays attention, and his imprisonment was for tax evasion, that was the only easy way to get a conviction. But in prison his mental faculties were progressively eroded by neurosyphilis, something he never recovered from.

No one really knows what was going on in Capone's head during his last year or so but this script if nothing else shows the chaos that surely must have been present. Towards that goal, to show that this career criminal had a hell on Earth towards the end, it is a well-made movie. I watched it streaming on the Kanopy site via my public library's subscription.

Although set in Florida it was filmed in Louisiana, mostly Covington, New Orleans, and surrounding areas.

Beautifully shot movie. That's the only plus. Wasted cast. Terrible script. Incoherent and slow as all hell.