Earlier this year we got a peek at Tom Hardy getting into character as Al Capone for the upcoming movie Fonzo. Now, we get the first look at Hardy fully made up as Capone and it’s fine. He doesn’t look anything like Capone but the overall impression is good as a gangster. This is thoroughly in his wheelhouse and I’m sure this will be a very convincing Tom Hardy performance even if we don’t understand a word he is saying.
Fonzo is about the final year in Capone’s life, and all of the press materials note that Capone suffered from dementia. Yes, technically, but he only had dementia because he had syphilis. None of the write-ups I’ve seen have mentioned syphilis, but that is what destroyed Capone’s brain (he got out of Alcatraz early because he pretty well went insane). I’m curious about Fonzo because it’s Josh Trank’s first movie after Fantastic Four, and also because I want to see how they handle late-stage syphilitic Al Capone. This is not the usual image of Capone people have, but by the end of his life (1947), he was most definitely not the man who ran Chicago in the 1920s. I figure the odds are 50/50. Either it’s a deep, affecting movie about karma and the indignity of death, or it’s The Book of Henry but with gangsters. Could go either way.
