Capone movie review & film summary (2020)

Ultimately the viewer might ask what the point is. The movie never quite answers that question. Not that it's obligated to—but in lieu of an agenda so basic, we need to at least feel as if we're getting some insight into psychology or criminality or something. Nor does "Capone" offer a main character darkly compelling enough to offset what a hideous, self-involved, spaced-out zero he is. He just seems like a sad old bastard who's fallen apart to the point where there's no reason to be scared of him unless he has a firearm in his hand. 

Nor does the film permit the other characters, or us, to really connect with Capone emotionally, so hermetically sealed-off is Hardy's acting and the film's specific attention to it. We don't get a sense of what the others originally saw in him as a friend, a husband, a brother, a boss, a thrilling and moneymaking gangster icon, etc., to inspire such loyalty at the end of his violent and ultimately miserable existence. It's the discount version of Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman." Life is hard; our choices have consequences; aging and death can be painful and prolonged; maybe there's a Creator who has a plan, even a cruel one, or maybe we're left to fend for ourselves in a cold and anonymous universe; and so on.

Was late-in-life Capone the best vehicle through which to explore whatever it was the film hoped to explore? Your mileage will vary. For my part, I've seen a lot of "final days of a difficult man" films, and this one falls somewhere in the middle of the quality continuum, with the daring, contemplative "Pasolini" and "The Irishman" on one end, and the "let's throw some pancake makeup on these actors" fiascos "Mr. Saturday Night" and "For the Boys" on the other.

Trank, an original and somewhat off-kilter filmmaker who hasn't been well-served by studios, seems to be in control here, and the result is intriguingly measured and counterintuitive for a glossy psychological drama. While Hardy's snarling and rumbling and middle-distance staring are electrically unpredictable, the film's compositions and movements are mapped, lit, and juxtaposed so precisely that one imagines "Capone" being  storyboarded within an inch of its life—as movies were in earlier eras, before directors decided that the default was shooting with lots of cameras and figuring out how to "cover" the scene during editing.

The effect here is akin to watching a cranky old tiger pacing in a small cage. It's hard not to appreciate the old-school craft involved, as well as the impulse to build a feature film around a historical personage in an intimate, realistic situation. Whether you find the result mesmerizing or dull will depend on factors that can't be measured by a star rating. Mine represents  mystified respect.