Yet another Al Capone movie, this one about his post-Alcatraz descent into syphilitic dementia, hasn’t impressed the reviews. The Wall Street Journal says: “If watching a shuffling, scrofulous, incontinent and delusional gangster in terminal decline is your idea of entertainment, “Capone” is what you’ve been waiting for. The Chicago Sun Times described it as “a noxious film about a noxious man”.
America’s most famous criminal ran a Chicago empire during Prohibition, built on illegal alcohol, gambling dens, bordellos, loan shark operations, protection and extortion rackets. He had judges, politicians, journalists and policemen on his payroll. His ‘Outfit’ brought in $1.5 billion in today’s money and left hundreds of corpses in its wake. He was ultimately convicted for tax fraud and once inside was diagnosed with late stage syphilis contracted from his early days working as ‘the muscle’ for numerous brothels.
Capone, born 17 January 1899 New York 9.30am (unverified) had a see-saw chart with three oppositions – an ambitious, can-be-dictatorial Capricorn Sun in a combative opposition to Mars in final degree Cancer; an innovative, unpredictable, emotionally changeable Pluto opposition Uranus Venus in Sagittarius; and a neurotic, paranoid, creative Saturn in dogmatic Sagittarius opposition Neptune. See-saw charts are continually looking for balance and rarely finding it. It’s not (on this birth time) that brutal a chart for a man who ran an ultra-violent crime outfit, profiting from human misery and depravity.
His serial killer 18th Harmonic was strong, as was his in-the-history-books 17H; and oddly enough the victim/sacrifice 12H, which joined together a fearsome combination of Pluto Moon, Mars and Uranus, much more descriptive of his murderous lifestyle – so 12H must have an additional meaning.
His reign of terror didn’t last long – in mob-boss terms – since he was sentenced at 33 by which time his mental decline was marked. At that point his Solar Arc Neptune opposition Solar Arc Saturn was starting to oppose/conjunct his natal Sun opposition Mars. When two major chart configurations come together by Solar Arc it almost always creates a life-changing crisis – and it would be in place for the few years following when he evidently failed to make much impact in Alcatraz as his deterioration increased. Tr Neptune was starting several years of squaring his Uranus. Venus, Pluto and Saturn. With tr Pluto in Cancer aiming also to oppose his Sun and conjunct his Mars in the final phase of his 8 year incarceration which would be devastating. He died at home of a stroke just after his 48th birthday.
For a man who became such an iconic figure for the USA, it’s a puzzling chart with less substance than might be expected. Though his Capricorn Sun was exactly conjunct the USA 1776 Pluto, tying him into the country’s seamier underworld.
Tom Hardy, always attracted to violent weirdo roles, stars. Josh Trank directed, continuing on his roller coaster career path, starting with an epic high in 2012 in Chronicle, followed by the disastrous Fantastic Four which Vulture called a “confused, joyless mess”, an abysmal box office fail. This may not be much better.