BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Tom Groening Like so many mid-century biographical films, Al Capone marches through the man's life, giving equal weight to each way-point. It also fails miserably by providing no psychological or historical context for how he became one of crime's most notorious characters. In fact, the film succeeds in white-washing this killer. He woos the widow of one of his victims. He repeatedly makes the point that he's never been convicted of any crime. People die, but there is no depiction of Capone's ruthless, brutal side. Rod Steiger in the title role does an admirable job with the shallow script, but this is not enough to make the film worth watching. Oddly, there's no mention of Elliot Ness and when it comes to summing up Capone's end, we're told he died of "an incurable disease." What, audiences in 1959 couldn't handle the word "syphilis"?

edwagreen Rod Steiger gave a splendid performance here as the ruthless gangster who spared no one in his quest to attain the top of the mob world. Cunning, vicious and any other nasty adjective I could think of, Steiger was memorable here in the title role. He totally captured the man he portrayed.He also had great support with Nehemiah Persoff, who played his mentor. Persoff seemed to relish in these kinds of parts. He played a comedic hoodlum in the same year in "Some Like it Hot," and was often on the show in top gangster form in television's "The Untouchables."The movie showed that Steiger tried to have a private life, no less than with the widow of one of his many victims. Of course, business always came first.The movie was a little spoiled when the ending came very quickly. Otherwise, we have a fascinating portrait of a mobster at his worst and the times he lived in.

Indyrod This 1959 factual biography of gang lord Al Capone follows his rise and fall in Chicago gangdom during the Prohibition era. It stars one of my favorite actors of all time Rod Steiger, in an all out tour-de-force. After seeing this excellent gangster movie a long time ago, there has been no actor in any Al Capone role, that has came close to this film by Steiger. He is brutal to see the least, and his rise to power in Chicago is amazing to see, because it is based on true events. Great film, even after all these years Steiger is truly amazing as Capone. Be sure and catch this on DVD, the transfer is exceptional. No extras, but it's well worth watching.

Robert J. Maxwell I'm not sure that Rod Steiger comes across as very Italian in this movie. He wasn't really very good with dialects. And maybe he doesn't need to be too "Italian" anyway; Capone was born in Brooklyn, not Italy as he liked to claim. Steiger is a repulsive looking gangster here -- treacherous, sweaty, brutal, uncouth, and lecherous. Yet, I kind of like him. Steiger, I mean. Grew up hauling ice on the streets of Newark, New Jersey. Anybody who can get from there to an academy award has my vote. Oh, sure, he can sometimes turn in a nicely measured performance, as in "On the Waterfront" and "The Pawnbroker" and "Doctor Zhivago." And sometimes he flails about, chewing the scenery to a frazzle, as he does here. But the exaggerration is curiously appropriate. The musical score cues us that this isn't all meant to be taken too seriously. And through the mask of all those wild gestures, verbal quirks, and method grimaces he does manage to project a fullsome ruthlessness. His boss, Johnny Torrio (Nehemia Persoff) promotes him to partner and when Capone asks why, Persoff turns to him, eyes filled with fear, and replies in a quivering voice, "Al, I want you standing next to me. I don't want you behind me no more." The two actors play off each other well. I've sometimes wondered if they reminisced about the scene they had together in "On the Waterfront." Persoff was the taxi driver in that famous scene, which I watched Elia Kazan filming in Hoboken as a kid. "On the Waterfront" was Martin Balsam's debut film too. He was morally upright there, whereas he is a likable reporter here but embodies moral terpitude, which is engaging as far as it goes, until he crosses Capone. Fay Spain, playing a woman whom Capone has turned into a widow, is exotic and sexy, but a limited acress. James Gregory is miscast as the straight police officer who is Capone's nemesis. I can't recall a single movie in which he appeared to be anything but a lying blowhard. But his character gets the job done. There are no "Untouchables" here. For all of the loathsome things that Capone did or instigated he spent only eleven years in prison for tax evasion. It wasn't easy time, true. When he refused to join in an uprising he was stabbed from behind by another inmate -- and this was Capone! He was released and allowed to spend the rest of his life in his Florida mansion. I guess we are supposed to take his slow death from syphilis as somehow a providentially imposed punishment, but lots of people had syphilis -- good and bad. Even Florence Nightingale died of syphilis.