Capone, inspired by events that took place in the last stages of the infamous gangster’s life -played here by Tom Hardy-, marks the return to filmmaking from Josh Trank after his latest project Fantastic Four (commonly known as Fanfourstic) was panned by critics and audiences alike back in 2015.

This five year gap after his last film tanked, could have been a necessary resting phase, after the strong criticism that arose after the failure of his reboot of the Fantastic Four. This period could have marked a return to his roots in the shape of a film more in the vein of his 2012 debut Chronicle, which was a well received hit. 

However, Trank has returned with a mess of a film in which the only thing that is worthy is Hardy’s over the top and constantly mumbling take on the eponymous character. Everything and everyone else around him -Matt Dillon, Linda Cardellini and Kyle MacLaclan among others- seems to be there only as an attempt to restrain his performance or to make him repeat his dialogue for the sake of being understood by the audience.              

Far from the usual plot lines seen in other films, Capone is centered on the final year of his life. The gangster’s health was at his worst as he was dealing with dementia, a result of having suffered from paresis -also known as brain syphilis-, disease that allowed him to be released from prison into a hospital, and finally his estate in Florida, where he died.

We are not shown the man as a criminal mastermind on top of his game, here he is a weak man who has problems controlling his bodily functions, who finds it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, a man who is clearly approaching death. 

With this film, Hardy continues what started with Venom, i.e. an over the top, eccentric performance that despite not being easy to describe with words is both hypnotic and unpredictable. He is hands down the best thing of the film, as it is evident that he is fully committed to the role. However, what is less clear for the audience is what is exactly going on in this film.   

As it happened with Venom, Capone is by no means a good film and because of that it is a disservice to Hardy, but while the story of the antihero and main enemy of Spiderman at least succeeded at being an over the top piece of bonkers entertainment, Trank’s Capone is a static, repetitive film that only improves mildly when it loses control and jumps in the shoulders of its main actor. 

Hardy has let himself disappear behind layers of make up and has embraced the character completely. Here, he gives an insane performance and never, ever fails to deliver. He manages to be threatening despite being dressed in a gown and being drooling and chewing a cigar -or a carrot-. There is a sense of constant menace every time he opens his mouth, even it that is to mumble something incomprehensible that sounds like a recording of Nick Nolte being played backwards.   

Capone, which is by no means a good film, only manages to be slightly engaging and entertaining to see when its focus is on the eponymous character and how he is losing the battle against dementia, but even then it is surrounded by excessively violent images, unnecessary characters and plot lines that seem to have no sense and that add nothing to the main story, existing only to fool the audience.  

Trank’s Capone is a failed attempt both to make a gangster film from a different perspective -by not focusing on his crimes but on their impact on his last year of life- and to make a comeback for the director himself.

Maybe the main reason behind Capone’s failure is on the fact that, despite having a polarizing powerhouse of a performance from Hardy, depicting a person on the verge of death, we are never given a single motive to feel sorry for him, only scene after scene, trying to outgross the one before, all of that giving shape to a story that starts and ends exactly in the same place, nowhere interesting.