*This is a true story

IMDB Synopsis

Chronicling the final days of notorious gangster Al Capone as he succumbs to dementia and relives his past through tormenting memories.

“He has full blown dementia”

Al Capone is one of the most notorious figures in the history of our country. In Chicago where I currently live you cannot go into two different bars without seeing his face because of his history in the city. Most of the time when he has been portrayed in movies as well it has taken place in Chicago and around his years as a mob boss. However, Josh Trank’s new movie Capone decides to take a look at his later years in Florida and how he lost his mind before his death.

Josh Trank who is mostly known for the Fantastic Four debacle decided he wanted to make this movie his way. And if there is one thing you can say about this movie is that it is unique, for better or worse. We get outlandish dream sequences, we have Capone (Tom Hardy) singing along to the Cowardly Lion, and we get a trio of scenes where Trank decided to have Capone just poop his pants. Every scene is very visceral and honestly hard to watch at points because it gets extremely violent. I mean by the end Capone is just in a Diaper shooting a gold plated machine gun at people.

On some level this movie feels just like Ebenezer Scrooge traveling throughout his life and watching his past mistakes. On the other hand, when you are watching you just feel like, does any of this have a point? Sure it is shot well and the music is fun, but every scene is just more ridiculous than the last you are exhausted by the end.

Stock Watch

Stock Down – Tom Hardy

I am a big fan of Hardy but man did I not like what he was doing here. The voice was absolutely absurd and just took you right out of the movie, and his constant grunting and ugly looks made him very unappealing. This is not what I would have expected if you told me Tom Hardy was gonna play Al Capone.

*A couple other tidbits

• Linda Cardellini was perfect as always in her smaller role as Capone’s wife.
• Love seeing Matt Dillon back in the mix, but again just not much for him to do.
• For years apparently this movie was supposed to be called Fonzo, which was Capone’s nickname.

This is a movie that is either going to work for people or it wont. There will be no one really in the middle. By nature this movie is meant to get reactions out of people and for me it just did not all add up. I respect that everyone involved seems to be going for it, I just wish the product was a little stronger.

Juice Rating:

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