The poster for the upcoming biopic Capone shows off Tom Hardy as the infamous gangster whose mind was decimated by syphilitic dementia in his final days. In all of American history, few names are more instantly recognizable than Al Capone, the scar-faced criminal who flaunted his wealth to the media and boldly taunted the police before being arrested for – of all things – tax evasion. Though he's been dead for over 70 years, Capone's story, a twisted perversion of The American Dream, remains popular in historical fiction to this day.
The latest attempt to bring the legendary thug's life to the cinema comes in the form of Capone, directed by Josh Trank. Originally titled Fonzo before being picked up by distributor Vertical Entertainment, Capone stars Tom Hardy in the role of a gangster living out his final days in luxury but imprisoned by his fractured psyche, a result of his neurosyphilis. The film uses his decaying mental health as a way for his life of crime to catch up with the aging gangster through grisly flashbacks and hauntings from his past. Capone's provocative tagline, "We all pay for our crimes in the end," sets the tone for a biopic that looks to be more of a psychological thriller than a rundown of the facts of Capone's final days.
A new poster for Capone has been released (per Collider), showing off the incredible makeup that appears to transform Tom Hardy into a ruthless gangster. He's almost unrecognizable as Al Capone, the man who continues to define the gangster aesthetic, even 90 years after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, one of the most widely-publicized gangland murders of all time.
It's been a long road for Capone, which was shot back in mid-2018. It was unclear whether or not the film, then known as Fonzo, would be released in theaters, especially once the Coronavirus pandemic effectively shut down virtually every movie theater in the country. In the end, distributor Vertical Entertainment stepped in and picked up the rights to the project, which had been renamed, Capone. They will be releasing it directly to Video On Demand.
Capone marks a real make-or-break moment for Josh Trank, who wrote, directed, and edited the film. After breaking out with the sleeper hit Chronicle, Trank's subsequent film, 2015's Fantastic Four, was a critical and commercial dud, marred by hostility between Trank and studio 20th Century Fox. It's believed the bumpy production of the film is what led to Trank exiting a Star Wars standalone spin-off film, though "Creative Differences" stood as the official reason. If Capone earns a strong critical reception, then Trank will be back on the path to becoming one of Hollywood's hottest young directors.
Source: Collider