A few actors have taken on the role of crime boss Al Capone, and a few of them have done alright. Now it’s Tom Hardy’s turn and so far it definitely looks as though he’s playing the role a little darker and a little more psychotic than even De Niro could possibly pull off. Maybe it’s the current style of filmmaking, maybe it’s something else, but the trailer that we’ve been given for this upcoming movie, hopefully upcoming at least, looks like nothing less than a steep dive into a shallow pool with a rude but truthful awakening of just who Capone was in his day and what his place in the world really meant. It’s kind of a hope that the movie will shed light on how he was brought down as well considering that as much fun as the movie The Untouchables really is, Elliot Ness’ involvement in taking down Capone was exaggerated in a big way to make a blockbuster movie, and while the press did dub his men The Untouchables, it was still a war that didn’t play out in such a personal manner. In many ways some would even go so far as to say that Al Capone was a humanitarian as well as a gangster since he did manage to do a few things that were seen as good and helpful in his community, though they were often funded and made possible by the illicit dealings that he participated in and ran during his 7-year stint as a crime boss.
Yeah, you read that right. Capone was only a boss for 7 years. Up until that point he was working under a couple of other individuals named by Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio, who brought Capone up in the business. By the time he was 26 Capone had been handed the keys to his own kingdom so to speak, and was running things in his own outfit. Of course he managed to rub a lot of people the wrong way, and as Elizabeth Nix of History reveals he’s still thought to have masterminded the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, but the fact remains that the authorities could never get anything to stick. What’s really amusing about Capone is that he was finally taken down thanks to tax fraud, and as a result he was first incarcerated in a penitentiary in Atlanta and eventually moved to the infamous Alcatraz, where he nearly lost his life when doctors tried to cure him of syphilis by injecting him with malaria. After finally being released he did his best to stay out of the spotlight and ended up dying at home, which is almost what it might appear is going to be shown in the movie.
Tom Hardy has pulled off a long list of roles that have made him one of the top actors in Hollywood and a few that have made people wonder just what he’s thinking, but he’s been great throughout all of it and has earned his reputation as a serious actor. He’s slated to be coming back for Venom 2 eventually along with Woody Harrelson but there’s no telling just when that movie will be able to hit theaters or what will be left of the theater industry when it’s finally allowed to open. But as Capone he’s already looking as though he might another slightly divisive role on his hands since on one hand it does look like a movie worth watching, but on the other, as it happens with so many biographical movies, the look of the man is going to be hotly debated, which means that a lot of the movie might be debated at one point as far as what really happened and how history says this or that. Smart money says that if people watch this just for the sake of it being a movie and something that’s supposed to be entertaining then it might be okay, but if they’re watching for historical accuracy then it’s all over since very few movies ever get everything right. Know what the reason is? Real history is sometimes very boring and a little too brutal to show people at times. Al Capone wasn’t the nice guy that some might have made him out to be, as he was one of the more vicious and thug-like crime bosses in the history of organized crime.
But of course opinions are going to vary since those who were there and those who heard the stories secondhand from relatives and family friends that were there at one point might come forward and say something entirely different. The point is that the movie already looks like it might be wort the effort, so hopefully the theaters will be opening eventually or perhaps studios will look into streaming their movies so they can actually get them to the audience.
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