The Big Picture - Bane, Venom, and 'Capone': The Tom Hardy Hall of Fame | The Big Picture

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

No one challenges the expectations of movie stardom more than Tom Hardy. His latest film—the scatological, phantasmagoric, late-life biopic 'Capone'—features one of his most visceral performances yet. Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to review the new Josh Trank–directed film and build a shrine to Hardy's fascinating, frequently bizarre collection of performances. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The Ringer is launching a new podcast from the guys who brought you a cesspitous family barbecue called Baseball Barbecue. Hosted by Jake Mintz and Jordan Schusterman, they're bringing you the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre corners of the baseball world and everything that makes it special. Throughout the offseason, they'll dive into the rabbit hole on some of their favorite fascinations from the home run derby to baseball brawls and much more. Once the season returns, they'll break down the latest MLB news and developments. You can subscribe to

Baseball Barbecue on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. let's not stand on ceremony here mr wayne i'm sean fantasy i'm amanda dobbins and this is the big picture a conversation show about a man who did not adopt the darkness. I'm talking about someone who was born in it, molded by it. He didn't see the light until he was already a man. By then, it was nothing to him but blinding. I'm talking, of course, about Tom Hardy. The 42-year-old British-born actor is one of the few movie stars of his generation who is constantly seeking new ways to upend the very term. Few stars take on more strange, unnerving, and sometimes ill-considered choices than Hardy,

which is one of the reasons we love him so much. This week, he stars in one of the precious few major releases for adults since quarantine began, Josh Trank's Capone. In this episode, we're going to build a hall of fame to Hardy's expansive, fascinating, and very strange career. And we're joined by the Bane to Amanda's Batman, Chris Ryan. Hi, Chris. Speak of the devil and he shall kill. Hopefully that's the first of what will be many Bane imitations throughout this episode. Guys,

we have a lot to say about Tom Hardy. I want to start this conversation by talking just a little bit first about the movie Capone, which is a long-awaited project from Josh Trank in some respects. Trank is probably best known as the director of Chronicle and then the somewhat disastrous 2015 version of Fantastic Four. And he has spent the last five years essentially residing in director jail. And his triumphant return is the story of Al Capone at the end of his life, portrayed by Tom Hardy, transforming from Tom Hardy into Al Capone. Just first take off the bat, Amanda, what did you think of Capone? It's a no for me, dog. Absolutely not.

We have to be honest. You alluded to a lot of the narrative surrounding Josh Trank in the last five years and director jail and uh failed movies and the chances that we give directors and it's important to give people second chances and I believe that you know it's important to judge people on their work and I am judging the work this movie did not work for me Chris what did you make of Capone I think that there was an interesting movie in there to me. You know, even the, not to spoil anything or not to give any parts away

because I know it's just come out, but I thought even like the moments in the beginning of the film with a slightly more cognizant Al Capone talking about Thanksgiving, I was like, this could be cool. This is going to be lit. And then most of it is an incontinent man

who is only able to mumble through layers and layers of what I honestly, with no disrespect to the craftspeople who worked on this film, I thought was quite obviously just like six inches of makeup on top of him. And so it was pretty distracting. And I think it's a tough watch. Sean, I want to hear your zag because I feel it coming. Sometimes I can just put my hand on the rail and I can feel the fantasy zag coming. So tell me why Capone is good.

I don't know that I'm ready to say that it's good. I think, let's talk about the Josh Trank project in general. What Trank has been up to, some of the self-mythologizing that he has participated in recently, what he's trying to do as a filmmaker. He really is one of these people who has a lot Anderson, for the icons of this show, that tends to lead to imitation slowly evolving into personal vision. Trank tried to skip every step early on in his career and just become Steven Spielberg. He saw himself as in competition with Spielberg at a very young age. He wanted to beat Steven Spielberg to feature filmmaking. And he sort of did with Chronicle, which I think is a good movie. And I think it was a creative spin on both found footage movies and on superhero movies and is a lot darker in a serious way than most movies that come in that format that we always talk about on this show. Fantastic Four is bad. It's well known why it's bad. It's bad probably for reasons

that are both Trank's fault and the producers and the studio's fault. It was ill-conceived in general. It's completely hacked together and nonsensical. I understand why he sort of blew up his standing in the world and maybe he didn't totally realize what the consequences of doing that would be Capone to me is not a triumphant return for Trank but points for effort I think he definitely made the thing he wanted to make yeah he's been saying that in the press he's like I understand that this is getting bad reviews in some quarters but it's my movie right and and his movie is this scatological amoral confounding portrait of a neurosophilic madman and i you know there's not a lot of movies like that i could say that there's there's there's a there's a a boldness to the story that he's telling. I assume that he has conflated Capone kind of losing his mind, kind of spiraling in this mansion of his own creation to maybe some of his own personal struggles and probably how he spent some of the time in the last five years reimagining what his life could be or should be or what the good times they were what they seemed like versus what they actually represented and whether he sold out his soul to do certain things i i see like the the vision that he's trying to create i think unfortunately

i can't fully zag because it's just a difficult and kind of unpleasant movie to watch and it's not the kind of unpleasant movie to watch that is rewarding at the end of it or that you feel like you've learned something or that there was something more powerful than yourself it's just kind of gross and and I I don't know just not deep you know like there it's just kind of like lacking

depth so even though I think Hardy is like super committed and Trank you know this this is kind of like a pat word these days but is kind of fearless like him taking people's money and spending it to do this movie after already being rejected by Hollywood is kind of gutsy

and I think I think he's basically being rejected again even though he's this sort of like object of fascination amongst movie bloggers he has now made three movies 1.3 of which are good or interesting, and that's not a great ratio. I hadn't thought of it like that. That's really funny. It's just not a good performance track record. Amanda, what about it specifically did you think

did not work? I just actually don't think it's particularly original or that there's a huge amount of vision. I think it's a pretty classic story about a very knowable villain late in life reflecting back just with extra poop. And I mean, if you think like taking a lot of money to put poop in a movie is gutsy, then sure. congratulations to Josh Trank. I didn't find it that innovative as far as filmmaking goes. I found it to be a tough hang. We're going to talk a lot about Tom Hardy performances and Tom Hardy's career and evolution. Again, I do respect Tom Hardy's commitment. He shows up and he's going to do what he's going to do. But I wouldn't say it's my number one Hardy performance either. It feels a bit

familiar as well. I just I had seen a lot of this before, even though it is a really weird, dark, extremely physically gross movie. And and that on top of just not enjoying watching it was enough for me. What's really interesting to me is that Tom Hardy had planned on making a movie called Cicero, which was about Al Capone's rise to power in Chicago, loosely. I can't remember when he had sort of started talking about this. Tom's a lot of like, Tom Hardy casting the more traditional Al Capone rises out of the Chicago underworld to become one of the first celebrity mob bosses. Yeah. I don't want to conflate Fearless with original. I don't think that Capone is an original movie. And I don't think that this is even an original performance by Hardy. It's

definitely a hallmark of his to kind of uglify himself to play a character who's very unlikable and inscrutable and frequently mentally unwell. That seems to be like a hallmark of a lot of the, of his biggest and best known performances. I just think it, it does take guts to just take people's money and just say, I'm going to just do whatever I want with it. You know, like with it. This is like a completely uncompromised, independent film production. And the studios that helped fund it are Braun Studios, which make a lot of mainstream movies for Warner Brothers and Sony, and those films get picked up there. And Lawrence Bender, who is Quentin Tarantino's earliest producer who helped produce Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown and a couple of the early films.

And then they tried to take this movie to market and sell it. And no one wanted it. I mean, I think they finished filming this movie in 2018. They finished cutting it in 2019 and no one wanted to buy it. And you can see why. I mean, it's an hour and 45 minute disgusting portrayal of a

psychotic criminal. And it's not funny. And it's just not that insightful. I do think that there's like some good filmmaking in it. I don't know if that really matters at this point. I do think that that especially that like 15 minute dream sequence that happens sort of later in the film where he's really like slipping deep into his own mania is a cool sequence i think it's like it's well done um but i thought that i thought the kid at the thanksgiving table was good it's very generous of you i thought she was a very good kid and tom hardy had real chemistry

with her and and tom hardy plays that kid I mean, hats off to him. Trank's a really good ideas guy. I thought, you know, if you saw his short, which is maybe not totally aged well in the title department, but the one that's on YouTube about the lightsaber fight at a kegger, that is obviously a very inventive and smart

little idea. There's tons of smart ideas in Chronicle. It's what elevates it. Even the idea of like, these guys can control cameras with telekinesis, so that's why it's still a found footage movie, but it has a little bit more of a wider cinematic palette than most found footage

movies have. And even within Fantastic Four, the original pitch on that movie was that it was going to be David Cronenberg body horror about these young people going through traumatic physical changes that eventually lead them to becoming superheroes. He has good ideas. I don't know that he needs to be an auteur. I don't know that he needs to be the sole person in charge of the vision of what's getting to the screen. I think that Spielberg learned that too, where he was like, I work well when I work with good screenwriters and good producers and have some

checks and balances in place. And I think that Trank is, at least based on that Matt Patches piece that was in Polygon, it's obvious that he sees himself as almost like a Stanley Kubrick figure of like, my vision is I'm the only person who knows how to get it up on screen and i must break every piece of china in the store to get it done yeah it's the the writing aspect of it is interesting he obviously he wrote capone and he has a right screenwriting credit on fantastic four he did not write chronicle that movie was written by the the now canceled max landis um and capone feels like the movie that would be his second film that people would say, this is kind of, this doesn't work, but there's something audacious here.

Let's give him a bigger job. And he, you know, Trank was part of this generation of filmmakers like Colin Trevorrow, like Gareth Edwards, you know, guys who were often white guys who were guided very quickly into gigs directing Marvel movies, Jurassic Park movies. Some got to make Star Wars movies and they got those gigs, you know, far be it from me to lay judgment, but most of them didn't just didn't seem ready to make movies like that. And I think all those guys either got fired from quit or were replaced on a Star Wars movie. Yeah. So shout out to Kathy Kennedy.

Yeah. And I mean, the chickens may come home to roost on that too, because those were all very complicated decisions. And even, you know, JJ Abrams once upon a time was a Trank esque figure. You know,

he was a guy who desperately modeled his career after Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard and George Lucas. Those were his heroes growing up. He tried to make big wide stories that appealed to people's childlike sense of wonder. And JJ worked in TV for 10 years before he got his chance to really start making movies. Trank doesn't do that. And so Trank is a guy in his mid-30s who's now made three films, all of which, I don't know, probably came before they were due.

And it's really interesting the way he's talked about Hardy throughout this press cycle. He's very insistent that he and Hardy are now close friends and that they frequently text and play video games together during quarantine, which that just leads me to visualize Tom Hardy playing video games, which is something I would like to see. Perhaps they could get on Twitch together.

Hardy is a weird one. I mean, he really is like a, I don't know if we've ever done an episode about a figure like him before. Amanda, would you say that you like him? Love Tom Hardy. Huge fan. I was trying to think about why, because he is definitely a movie star while having avoided every single type of movie star role that I love with one notable exception which we will be talking about at great length you can probably guess what it is but it's interesting he is he's a really big deal and he's never had that actual being Batman himself moment he's never been that he has actually been the guy in a rom-com and it was terrible. And we'll talk about that too, but he plays gangsters and

villains and people who wear masks and people where you can't understand his voice. And he is difficult often on screen and the characters. I think that sometimes there are stories about how he can be emotional or combat on set. And he doesn't fit into your typical like classic Hollywood guy, but he has such charisma, like such charisma. It's so powerful

and has found so many different ways to use it. It is really, really fascinating to watch him find the Tom Hardy-ness in every single one of these roles. Chris, I feel like you've been a longtime Tom Hardy person, but do you feel like he has lived up to the early sense we were getting from him

when he started showing up in movies like Layer Cake and Rock and Rolla? Did he turn out to be the performer you wanted him to be? No, he didn't turn out to be the performer I thought he was going to be, but he's run so far away from that thing that I feel like he's fully something else now. The idea of waiting for Tom Hardy to go back to the source is kind of a fool's errand at this point because he's made more movies where he's wearing a mask, where he's doing an accent, where he's hunched over, where he's put

on a ton of weight, where he's lost a ton of weight, where he's Russian, where he's speaking like he's Daffy Duck. Then he has those four or five foundational, oh, is this guy a Paul Newman figure? Is this guy going to be this amazing male lead who is both beautiful and deeply, deeply talented at acting? I think it's notable that he went to the same drama school and was right around the time of Michael Fassbender. And Michael Fassbender is obviously somebody who's kind of... I think we're waiting for the next chapter of what Michael Fassbender will do now that he had a dalliance in some blockbusters. But I think everybody kind of would love a really meaty, incredible Michael Fassbender performance.

But Hardy has kind of deviated from that entirely. He's never done a truly Oscar-bait performance. He hasn't done a lot of matinee idol performances outside of some of the supporting roles he's done. Almost everything he's doing is about transformation. So it's hard to talk about him as a movie star when he so obviously

never wants to be the same thing twice. He has this desire to be a part of huge projects but also completely obscure himself inside the huge projects like we'll talk about a lot of these but and it doesn't just mean wearing a face mask obviously wearing a mask is a is a tom hardy bit at this point but you know mad max fury road is in the news this week there was an oral history in the new york times mad max fury road is almost certainly going to make the Tom Hardy Hall of Fame. Spoiler alert.

In that movie, it sounds like his voice is dubbed the entire time, and he seems to be giving a performance that is completely different from every other person in the movie. And even if you can see his face, and he is the title character of the film, it just doesn't feel like his movie at all. And conversely, I think when he takes on supporting parts, he kind of like steals movies aggressively when he's in these smaller roles, you know, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Inception and a bunch of other movies we'll talk about here. And it's such a cliche to call the leading man who has a darkness inside of him,

like a character actor trapped in a movie star's body. We've talked about this with Pitt in the past and a lot of other actors, but he seems to be kind of taking that conceit to the next level for some reason. Do you agree with that, Amanda? Yeah, I mean, he has become the character actor as movie star or the movie star as character actor. I couldn't really tell you which one,

but he doesn't have that central defining performance. He has a bunch of character roles that we have all accepted as his leading man body of work. It's interesting. I was thinking about him in context with Jake Gyllenhaal, who is a similar person who is really avoiding that classic Hollywood leading man role guy because of what happened with Prince of Persia. And also to an extent as Robert Pattinson, who, you know, post-Twilight has been picking out things for himself. And they're all very different types of actors in their presence, but they do all seek out kind of offbeat, weird roles now and are working with different directors and aren't doing always just down the middle franchise stuff. But those guys like still have to be on the cover of GQ, for example, for this week, the calls coming from inside the house on that

one, but they still have to be like matinee idols to an extent, even Jake Gyllenhaal a little bit. And Tom Hardy has somehow managed to avoid that, I guess, because he never had that central franchise role. And so he just always is the character actor on the side. But I think there must be a lot of people who are jealous of Tom Hardy's career in that way, based on what I understand actors wanting and how they want to be perceived and the way they want to be able to select their roles yeah i think that's right i mean i don't know he's been a part of i don't know five six seven great movies and is certainly one of the best known people from that gyllenhaal

generation that we're talking about you know he's he's before pitt but sort of or i guess he comes after pitt but before the sort of like netflix teen idol and so he falls into this nether zone of star that we always talk about on this show and on the rewatchables and there is i don't know if there's a version of him that could be leonardo dicaprio i don't i don't i don't not just because of the way that he chooses to perform but just because of how movies are right now but to the that, when he makes a movie, it is, it has kind of become an event, even if he isn't the main character in the movie. And, you know, if you look at a movie like the Revenant, he's probably like the fourth build

idea in the movie. You know, if, if the movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and he sleeps inside of the carcass of an animal, that's number two on the playlist. And number three is Ina Ritu. And then Tom Hardy comes forth. It still is like a, there's still something very memorable about what he does. Maybe we should just, we should walk through his, his, his career highlights. So usually when we do a hall of fame episode, we run down every significant performance that the actor has given in a movie and perhaps other things that they have done in their career hardy has been i would say medium agnostic over the years he certainly appeared in some tv shows he's um he's had a side music career of a sort i don't know if you guys you guys want to discuss tom hardy's rapping at all

another way i'm making pay by bending rules we a vote, but we don't have the say. And they think we take it on the chin, but it's just in. Too long it's been going on. And still we swing by the nuts. But revolutions soon come. No need for guns, son. We got the upper hand. No?

Yeah, I think we can move past that. Okay. Let's go to his first major performance then. 2001, Blackhawk Down. Does this make the Tom Hardy Hall of Fame? He's good in this. It's a good example of Tom Hardy doing what everybody else is doing.

And he has a lot of... You can feel the magnetic pull when Twombly's on the screen. He's really in it pretty briefly. My favorite thing about Blackhawk Down... Well, aside from Blackhawk Down, my favorite thing about this Hawk Down, well, aside from Black Hawk Down, my favorite thing about this year is that there's essentially these two things that happened in 2001 where almost every actor of this generation gets their start and it's Black Hawk Down

or Band of Brothers and Tom Hardy's in both. That's true. And I think also just in terms of the types of roles that Tom Hardy is going to play and the types of movies are going to find him in for the next 20 years. It's a it's a good place setter or a good starting point. It's not that big of a role, but I'm OK with like putting it in the Hall of Fame for now. And then if we got to make room, so be it. I also think it's worth noting that like the people behind those two things, Ridley Scott for Blackhawk Down and Spielberg and Tom Hanks, everybody who was working on Band of Brothers, clearly saw something in him. I mean, obviously, those roles are both the 15th or 16th. In Band of Brothers, it's the 25th on the call sheet,

but was earmarked at a very young age to be in that group of people. The next movie on the list is Star Trek Nemesis. Not sure if either of you guys have checked this movie out. This is one of the late period Star Trek films. You know, it features some Romulans. It's really more next generation cast. It's not a bad Star Trek movie.

It's not a great one. Tom Hardy plays the leader of the Romulans, Shinzon. Yeah. Yes, Amanda. Who of the Romulans, Shinzon. Yeah. Yes, Amanda. Who are the Romulans again? They're like worst Klingons. Oh, right.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, they're an evil extraterrestrial race in the Star Trek universe. Man, it really just feels like Star Trek is not a part of the culture anymore, huh? People just don't give a fuck about Star Trek. That's because JJ stabbed him in the back to go do Star Wars, man. I liked the first J.J. movie. Yeah. That was good. It was very good. Chris Pine crushed that.

I don't think that... I think it's interesting that Tom Hardy is basically the big bad of this movie, but he's in a lot of makeup and it's very similar to Black Hawk Down. It's sort of like portending where he's going, but it was not a hit hit but also being the big bad and a lot of makeup in a major franchise does anticipate a lot of tom hardy's career again i don't think we need to put it in there but

he is establishing some themes some early on okay we'll leave it out the next movie that i think we should talk about which is very interesting to me is is Layer Cake. Layer Cake is Matthew Vaughn sort of announcing himself as a stylish filmmaker after being a screenwriter and producer for Guy Ritchie. And this movie, of course, stars Daniel Craig before this movie. He's sort of a drug dealer slash criminal working alongside Craig's character. But the reason I want to talk about it is, doesn't it sort of feel like there could have been like a sliding doors moment between Craig and Hardy, you know, where they could have flipped roles? Hardy is one of the most frequently mentioned people for the role of James Bond after Craig.

And couldn't you have just seen a universe in which he got the Casino Royale version of Bond and then we're living in an alternate universe I can though I I think we're in the right universe Craig and Tom Hardy actually do have a lot of common and they're like actual physical builds and in their kind of stillness they are both people who or actors who are have like a quality of like reticence and repression, barely concealed rage or barely concealed something. And so they're kind of they're quiet. But, you know, that something is lurking beneath the surface. I think that if you make Tom Hardy bond, then you just like Tom Hardy as Bond would be excellent, but would completely

explode the myth of Bond. He would just kind of he would point out everything that is ridiculous about it, which, you know, maybe that franchise could use, honestly, and like kind of happened with Skyfall. But I think it's hard to explode the myth of Bond and then keep making movies. Yeah, it's really interesting to also consider if not him getting Casino Royale as him taking over after Skyfall. He has never been particularly shy about saying that he would like to be Bond. I mean, he does some gymnastics in interviews, but often will just be like,

well, you know what they say? If you say you want to do something, you'll never get it. So let me just say that I would always love to be in a room and talk to Barbara Broccoli about the part. And this period after 2012, where he plays Bane, and obviously that's where your Skyfall comes out, but he does Bane and then he goes on to do Locke and Revenant and all these other weird, sometimes Hollywood movies, sometimes successes, sometimes spectacular failures. It's a very strange sliding doors too to imagine him taking over for Craig at that time. But with Layer Cake, I think that this is a great sub-genre of British crime movie is just the Guy Ritchie incorporated era from that time. And Hardy's not in Layer Cake very much, but he's fantastic when he's on the screen. And it's such a different style of performance than

the one that you come to know from him, which is just super muscular and built. Yeah. I like the movie a lot. I feel like it's probably not meaty enough on the Hardy side to put it on the list. Fair enough? Yeah. I agree. Amanda, I got to say, I've not revisited this next movie in a long time, and I have no recollection of Tom Hardy being in it. But what role does Tom Hardy play in Marie Antoinette? Happily, I am here to share with both of you. So he is one of the people at court, one of the many people who is commenting on and judging Marie Antoinette in

French fashion. He brings oysters to a party and they play a game of like, it's not celebrity, but it's the same game they play in Inglourious Basterds in the basement where you put the character on your head and then everyone else has to ask questions of who they are. What is that game called? Heads Up. Is that what, Heads Up? Okay. okay so he plays heads up and then he points out to rose burn in it who's just giving a tremendous performance that perhaps marie antoinette as played by kirsten dunst is not following court rules as best she should and that's kind of it it's i give sofia coppola credit because i believe in that one scene is obviously kirsten dunst and also rose burn jamie dornan and Tom Hardy. So a good

assembling of who's to come. But I wouldn't say that this is his brightest performance. Okay. So Marie Antoinette is out unless Chris wants to object to that. No, I'm okay. Chris, you're bringing kind of a Louis XIV energy right now. Like a very like kind of the Dauphin kind of thing. Yeah. Like I was about to say something really inappropriate, but you guys don't remember the movie. So we'll keep it going.

2008 rock and roll it written and directed by Guy Ritchie. This is a Chris Ryan classic. This is a banger. Speak on it. I honestly another movie that I've seen and don't remember at all, except for having watched YouTube highlights that you sent to me. Oh, because I was I was like, remember when Toby Ke except for having watched YouTube highlights that you sent to me. Oh, cause I was, I was like, remember when Toby Kebbell just sang the clash in a mirror for like five

minutes in a Guy Ritchie movie. And we were like, sure, let's do it. No, this is a, this is a good one. This one is probably apex mountain drawer Butler for me.

Um, it stars Jara Butler, uh, Tandy Newton, Idris Elba's in it. Hardy, Toby, Toby Kebbell,

Jeremy Piven plays like a music producer with ludacris and it's essentially uh it's it's basically a thinly veiled crime movie about roman abramovich who owns the chelsea football club it's about like a russian billionaire uh you know the usual bag of money story and uh a lot of russian mob and old London mob clashing with each other in contemporary England. So it's actually probably next to Snatch, my favorite Guy Ritchie crime movie. Is it worthy of the Tom Hardy Hall of Fame?

Gangster Bob is a really good character. There's a lot- Handsome Bob. Handsome Bob, sorry. Handsome Bob is a very good character. I think it's really good evidence of what could have been, of Tom Hardy playing this undeniable...

I mean, honestly, a sex symbol and a heartthrob in this movie. So he has definitely walked away from that. I would put it on honorable mentions for sure. I'm going to flag it for now, and if we need to take it away we'll take it away um next up is bronson prison was honestly brilliant i liked it personally i thought that i loved it it was exciting it was on the edge It was madness at its very best.

Amanda, I don't know if you've seen this movie. This is a very severe and intense Nicholas Winding Refn movie. You're up on it? I've seen this movie. I don't live in a cave. No one's saying you live in a cave. It just doesn't really feel like it's in your zone. I mean, I guess I kind of do right now, but we all do. Anyway, yes, but Tom Hardy is in my zone.

I don't remember a lot of it. I just, I remember the conceit of, this is the one where he's almost like doing a theater. He's like on a black theater stage and is kind of narrating a lot of the flashback of his life and like really going for it. Exactly. He's frequently appearing in makeup. It's a total transformation by Hardy.

It's based on the true life story of Michael Peterson, who renamed himself Charles Bronson, famous British criminal, bald head, large sort of strong man-esque mustache. And it's a very theatrical performance. It's a very kind of over-managed in a good way, Nicholas Winding Refn movie that I think, you know,

this, this movie sort of leads to drive. And then the Nicholas winning rough and moment, this brought him a lot more notoriety than the movies that came before this very stylish, very, very, you know,

severe, very violent, very Stanley Kubrick influenced. There's so much of him pulling from a clockwork orange in this movie. Um, influenced. There's so much of him pulling from a clockwork orange in this movie. But I do think it's really the movie that got Hardy attention as a potential mainstream movie star. Would you agree with that, Chris? Yeah. And also I think where it becomes like he puts himself in the physical transformation Olympics with the other actors. I can't remember if it's exactly around the same

time, but I believe Michael Fassbender does Hunger around this time. So you're seeing these roles where these guys are going through these complete and total physical transformations, which is always, you know,

good fodder for praise for actors. If I remember, I mean, I remember obviously the stylized part of it and the physical transformation, but, and it is a violent and a startling performance, but there is still also, you can locate the Tom Hardy humanity in it. It's like pretty grounded, which he hasn't fully gone into. I'm wearing a mask being, you know, other world. That's

the second half of his career. And it's really effective. That's what's so memorable about it. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing shaded about it. He's literally into camera for half of the movie, communicating directly with the audience, which is kind of the opposite of a lot of his performance style that comes in the next 10 years. I think it's definitely got to go in the Hall of Fame. This is worth mentioning too, because this happened at a time where I don't think a lot of people were familiar with who Tom Hardy was and more importantly, with what he looked like. So if your first exposure to him was Bronson, you were kind of like, is this who this guy is? Does he have a mustache? Is he bald? Is he jacked? I don't even know who we're talking about here. It wasn't like he had 10

years of notable roles and then did the transformation. This was a lot of people's introduction to him. So it was pretty confusing the years to come afterwards yeah it didn't happen right away which is you know an entree into a conversation about the next movie which is thick as thieves which is a movie i haven't seen i don't know if either of you guys have seen it but um it's directed by mimi leader who uh obviously has directed a lot of notable movies and tv shows over the years including i believe she was a part of The Morning Show most recently. Yeah. Yes.

And this movie stars Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas and Tom Hardy, and I've never heard of it. So that's the thing about Tom Hardy is it didn't happen immediately after Bronson. It didn't happen immediately after Bronson. It didn't happen immediately after Black Hawk Down. He was compiling this CV over this course of 10 years and he would take on big roles, but sometimes movies just

appear and they've clearly been funded by oligarchs and arms dealers and they don't find the right distribution houses and then you can find them on the IMDb, but you can't find them out in the world. I'm sure Think as Thieves is available

on streaming services and Apple and whatnot. But if we've missed out on this in any way by not having seen it, please let us know. I do love those action movies where it's produced by this person in conjunction with, and also with this Peruvian copper mine. Yeah, it's a tried and true thing.

So pretty much after Thick as Thieves, shit gets very real for Tom Hardy in terms of the American consciousness. His first significantly big part in a mainstream movie. Inception. Is Inception. Before you bother telling me it's impossible. No, it's perfectly possible. It's just bloody difficult.

Interesting. Arthur keeps telling me it can't be done. Arthur. You still working on that stick in the mud? He is good at what he does, right? Oh, he's the best. There's no imagination. Not like you.

Listen, if you're going to perform Inception, you need imagination. Amanda, you love Hardy in Inception, you need imagination. Amanda, you love Hardy in Inception. Why? This is peak Tom Hardy for me. And I think it's because I had not seen any of the movies. Well, I had seen Marie Antoinette, but he's not a big deal. But I hadn't seen any of the movies we've discussed before Inception. And I just have a vivid, I remember being like, who is that? Who is that person? And it is the charisma that I'm talking about. This is his most straightforward, charming, dry. He doesn't talk too much, but everything that he says is funny, complete confidence, and steals every scene, I think, that you're in. I was texting Chris about this movie last night because I was rewatching it. And I said some rude things

about some other performances in this movie. I don't think that we need to speak on it. This is such a safe space. I just at one point, I was like, is is Leo bad in this movie? And I don't think that's fair. And I think some of it is because Leo is being asked to deliver the pop psychology of In which i have to tell you like chris ryan i i saw this movie in theaters the first time in my mind was blown i loved it i was this is incredible i was at court street theaters and just walked out being like is it real i don't know do i do that a lot no i you know i was just trying to I feel like that's the Chris Nolan reaction in general. And I was trying to be of the people rewatching it at home.

This some of the assumptions and the leaps in the movie become a little more apparent. And that's OK. You know, that's OK. Movies have their places. It's maybe not a like watch at home with your thinking cap on type of movie. But Tom Hardy can sell the nonsense and in a way that no one else can. And it just it makes it more effective. I wish he were like Eames more often just because I enjoy watching it. I have a pet theory that after DiCaprio and Hardy did the

like the Morocco scene together, DiCaprio turned to Nolan and was like, no more scenes with that guy. I did not sign up to be on the bottom of a slam dunk poster. That's how good he is. He's on screen for eight minutes and you're just like, the movie should be about this dude. The movie should be about the fixer in North Africa who's rolling through the dream world. Yeah. And you're just like, yes, I can accept people with their dreams. You know, everyone else.

It's like, did you remember that Ellen page's character's name is Ariadne? Like what is going on in this movie? But then Tom Hardy shows up and you're just like, oh, this does make a lot of sense. We really can manipulate psychologies. Yes.

It's also, um, it's a performance that feels like it's part of this long lineage of british character actor movie stars he described this as an old graham green type diplomat sort of faded shabby grandeur and you know it's he's doing alec guinness you know he's doing david niven like he's doing a very specific like you know hello darling like calling men darling and Trevor Howard. Yeah. Trevor being flamboyant,

but, but masculine at the same time and being cunning and the smartest person in the room. And I, I mean, I agree with everything that you guys said. I, he just walks away with the movie and you know,

I'm proud to have been a part of the, the most hated episode of the rewatchables ever in which we completely dissected and destroyed inception. I, I re I don't think it works like as a movie at all the second time you watch it but that doesn't mean there can't be great things in it and he to me is the greatest part about it that's true sean i'm with you last night i also sent chris the greatest meme ever created which is the meme of uh leo talking to killian murphy in it and it's just like leo says you know i'm gonna steal and invade dreams in order to get my kids back and the killian murphy is like why doesn't michael just fly her kids to france and then leo just like making the like confused inception space

space you know just like yeah but shout out tom Hardy. It's a movie with enormous style and great performances. And Chris Nolan is, is expert at doing that. Not always expert at making the logic of his films work, but that's okay. Inception has to go into the Tom Hardy hall of fame happily. Right guys. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Tinker Taylor soldier spy. Interesting one. Got a couple of, uh, LaCarre heads here. We've got, um, a longaited film adaptation of arguably the most, is it the most famous spy novel of all time, Chris? I think it's widely considered to be the best. This movie, when I went into it, I had not read any Le Carre. I don't, the spy genre is something that I like, but I don't feel expert in at all.

And I remember really loving this movie, but I don't feel expert in at all. And I remember really loving this movie, but I don't remember if I've spoken in both of you about how you feel about it and the part that Hardy plays. So maybe just a little pocket review. Amanda, what do you make of Tinker Tailor? Thanks so much for asking because earlier this year, I read Tinker Tailor Solder Spy and then I watched both the 70s BBC miniseries and the 2012 movie. So I feel very equipped to give my review, which is that I think Tom Hardy is one of the better parts of this movie. I like this movie.

I think that having read the book, it just like it's confusing and it doesn't totally explain everything that's going on. I mean, you know, spying is hard, so that's fine. But I think everyone plays their coldness and their Britishness and they're calculating and the shifting political and tensions and the betrayal very well. And you need an emotional center. And Tom Hardy's character is that. And he does it very well.

And the movie needs that. And also Tom Hardy, soon after this, does start drifting away from the characters actually showing you emotion. So I like it for, I like this performance for that as well.

I just think we also really have to award credit for bravery in wigs and coats. The wig gets in a little bit in my way. the character of ricky in the book and i i usually i'm not a but it's in the but in the book it's like this guy but the the character of ricky in the in the le cari novel is the point in the novel where you're like oh shit this is really great because he shows up and becomes the new narrator basically uh and explains

starts to explain why there's urgency around this whole situation rather than it just being this feeling that people have that things have been kind of going wrong for a little while uh i i do find his wig it just feels like we we need to be further along in wig tech you know at this point i feel that way still i mean like we we have avatar so could we get this and and it's also like tom hardy has hair and in the book it isn't like he's got a specific hairstyle so it always really threw me off that they were like huh that's a super charming guy who's like perfect for the character of ricky and tinker let's put him in a fucked up pujo salesman outfit but ricky isn't supposed to be like eames he's not supposed to be super charming he's not supposed to be in control of everything he is kind of he is as much like a these are the consequences of this fucked up spy game

that you guys are all playing right so he needs to be a little goofy sure but he can still he could still the hair the hair part jumps out uh that being said he's very good in this film and even though i have always enjoyed this movie visually but felt like it was basically like the the kind of like watered down version of tinker taylor uh i highly recommend it and I highly recommend his performance. One question for you. In the novel, does it say that Rick Itar wears a live fox on his head? Because that is what the hair looks like.

This is good training for all the Hardy roles to come because pretty much all of them have some kind of choice where you're like, I will either go with this, the mask, the accent, the weight gain, the weight loss, the hair choice, whatever, or I will stop at the entranceway. Should we put it in or not? I was coming into this podcast, I was going to be really hot. Yes, I actually really like this

performance, but maybe I just kind of talked myself out of it. I think it's, I think, I think it's on the outer ring. I think for me, it's, it's on the outer ring. It's, it's like if you've completed the 10 that are really on the inner circle,

then you can hit, hit Tinker Taylor. Okay. We'll come back to it then. I'll, I'll, I'll give it a nod for the moment, but maybe it's on the chopping block when we return.

The next film is 2011's warrior. What the hell happened over there, Tommy? That is none of your business, man. Oh, come on, Ken. You know, I've been there. I've done it. I've seen it. You can trust me.

I understand. You spare me the compassion to follow the routine, Pop. The suit don't fit. Listeners of this podcast will know that Warrior is the best sports movie of the 2010s and really one of the most underrated movies of the last decade. We talked about it a little bit when we talked about The Way Back and the sad bro-centric dramas of Gavin O'Connor. This is a movie about two brothers, estranged brothers,

who are both fascinated by mixed martial arts and their father, played by Nick Nolte. The two brothers are played by Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. This is, I actually remember it as one of the most exciting

and emotional movie experiences I've had in my adult life. And I don't even totally understand what it was that I was relating to in this movie, but it's an extraordinary performance by Hardy who has fewer than 20 lines of dialogue

and is just a almost like a killing machine he's just this impressive physical force and I feel like we keep pointing out different aspects of his acting style that he is going to adopt for some future performance and this feels like bronson

plus something else i don't i'm not quite sure what um it's like bronson minus the dialogue you know he's just this this this brutal force um i i really i really like this movie i think it's really like some of his best work i don't know chris what do you what do you think of war i mean he's like he'll make your cells explode watching watching him this movie, I think it's really some of his best work. I don't know. Chris, what do you think of Warrior? He'll make your cells explode watching him in this movie. He's throwing fire hydrants around. It's such an incredible physical performance. He's just such a raw, open wound of a character in this movie and doesn't do it with a lot of dialogue. Like you said, it's just like he's so vulnerable too, which is sort of uncommon for these kind of sports movies. I mean, often you'll have like that'll be the end point,

but his character in Warrior is all open and kind of raw. I love him in this. Vulnerable is the word that I was going to use. He's like really extremely moving in this while also being such a physical performance. And I think he's so good at it. And I value this performance because he does seem to inch away from that vulnerability of it as the career goes on. Also, really nice job balancing out. So this is a very good example

of if you've got Tom Hardy in the movie, what else do you do? And you kind of need a Joel Edgerton to make the donuts throughout the movie. And sometimes people don't do that. Sometimes they're like, let's have 15 crazy actors in this movie. Let's put Shia LaBeouf in it. Who cares? And you've got to have it where it's like, Joel Edgerton is going to show up in every scene and actually say the dialogue. Chris, do you want to take 60 seconds to vamp on your boy edgerton this is really one of your guys that see this is this is a classic fantasy move because why don't you fucking vamp on edgerton um i i i think joel edgerton is a perfectly fine actor who and i think all of the films that he's appeared in would be uh significantly upgraded if he was just replaced by Hugh Jackman in all of them.

I have to be honest. Picture every Joel Edgerton movie but with Hugh Jackman. I do not think that Warrior would be improved by Hugh Jackman, an actor that I respect very much. I don't know. I mean, imagine Wolverine

and Eames toe-to-toe in the octagon. Who says no? Is this the deepest concentric circle of big picture? When we start having incredibly hot edgerton takes i mean this is what we care about this is why we're doing this in the first place warrior is definitely going in the in the tom hardy hall of fame uh the next movie is this means war which is a movie i can hardly remember but i know amanda has a lot

of feelings about am Amanda, can you remind people what This Means War was and whether it belongs here? So I've seen this movie. I made a lot of jokes to you guys on Slack about it. I'm realizing now that I did not read the Wikipedia page to refresh myself on the plot of This Means War. I do this all

the time. So it's just gonna be it's just gonna be what I remember i have a take anyway because you know what i'm a professional so it is a romantic comedy starring reese witherspoon tom hardy and chris pine and there it's a love triangle they are both vying for the interest of reese witherspoon and they are both somehow spies. And there is some, quite frankly, problematic surveillance going on Reese Witherspoon while they're both trying to date her. I couldn't tell you why. I seem to recall that she is some sort of entrepreneur and she's friends

with Chelsea Handler in the movie. Anyway, not a successful romantic comedy. Here's the thing. It should have just been a romantic comedy between Tom Hardy and Chris Pine. They have tremendous chemistry. Just put those two guys in a romantic comedy. I love Reese. I question some of the decisions she's made in the last 18 months, but I'm always on her team. I just don't think she needed to be in this one. The end. The Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan Memorial. I have a strong take on a movie that I barely remember. We could start an offshoot if you want to do it, like a sub pod of just like, I think I remember reading about this on Vulture in 2014, but here comes 20 minutes on it.

I also remember this. This means war was like a pretty hot script like i remember like when it was like getting made people were like all of hollywood has gone out for them the two male leads in this in this in this movie and it just being absolute crickets when it came out um and i wonder whether or not the process of making this like if tom hardy after I mean, do you, I honestly haven't seen this probably since it was first on cable. Did, is Hardy any good in this? He's very charming. May I spoil this means war?

I am confident in the ending. Actually, I'm like 90% confident, but I think that Reese Witherspoon ends up with Chris Pine. So he doesn't even get the girl. So he's kind of like the third wheel type person. But he's perfectly charismatic. I'm sure this is why he'll never do a romantic comedy again. I think he'd be very good at it.

Yeah, I don't even remember watching this movie, even though I think I did. I do think it features two of the best character names I've seen in recent times, which is Chris Pine's character is Franklin FDR Foster and Tom Hardy's character is Tuck Hanson. I wish this movie had come out when Big Picture was going. I think you guys would have had a good time with this. I will say I rewatched a couple of clips and like Reese Witherspoon does call Chris Pine FDR. Like at one point they all meet at dinner and she's like, Tuck, this is FDR. FDR, this is Tuck. I mean, this is why this movie didn't work.

But anyway. Incredible stuff. I'll be naming my firstborn or my first dog Tuck Hansen. Is this means we're in or out? Out. It's out. Okay, it's out. The next movie is the most important movie we'll be talking about here.

It's called The Dark Knight Rises. This is the instrument of your liberation. This is the third film in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. I am the League of Shadows. I am here to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny. It doesn't matter who we are. What matters is our plan. And do you accept this man's resignation? No one cared who I was till I put on the mask.

Do you feel in charge? Um, I don't know what to say about it. Chris, you revisited this film for this podcast what is your take guys from it guys guys holy shit dark knight rises here's some stuff i forgot about dark knight rises originally the script was 400 pages long and it was heavily influenced by tale of two cities uh senator patrick lahey is in this movie in which he and is seen and is in a scene where he acts with ben mendelsohn ben mendelsohn took all the restrictor plates off his performance as daggett he is unbelievable in this uh this

the plot makes no sense at all. Like, at all. And it is all, all, all plot, all exposition. And I think Bane is one of the craziest things that's happened in pop culture in this century. Like, I think we are underrating

how fucking crazy Bane is. And Sean, I don't want to steal this because you were the one who cited this first. You're the one who inspired me to rewatch the whole movie. The cold open of Dark Knight Rises with Aiden Gillen being like, I'm CIA. Where's Bane?

And Bane being like right here on a plane. And then they break the plane in half. And Bane like shoots two guys, but like leaves one of his boys in the plane because he's like someone's got to be in the plane when it crashes. And then he jumps out of the plane. And Heinz Ward is in this movie. It's just like, we all were like, yeah, let's go to Dark Knight Rises like three times.

Let's try to figure it out, man. And I can't believe it happened. I can't believe they made this movie. I can't believe like three weeks before it came out, Christopher Nolan was like, oh shit, no one could understand what Tom Hardy says. It had to remix the movie. It is so wild. And yet also, honestly, very rewatchable. I found it completely entertaining. It's one of the best examples of a director being high on his own supply. After the success of The Dark Knight and Inception, Nolan is like,

I am Kubrick with the keys to DC. I can do whatever I want with any of this stuff. And he turns a Batman movie into an Occupy Wall Street movie. Yeah. Anne Hathaway

invents Choppo Trap House in this movie. Yeah. It's incredible. And just for the sake of hearty purposes yeah the bane performance is hilarious it's like effective he is huge in this movie even bigger than he is in warrior and very intimidating and very believable to the character of bane who in the comic books famously breaks batman's back and paralyzes him and he's like imposing but he is using this voice which has been redubbed as you

said chris that is almost like um it's like a mutant dandy you know the the the britishness of his voice he based it off of like the like the kind of rogues gallery of dickens novels he was like oh yeah this is like the the urchin urchin king you know selling selling blacksmith oil out of the back of a shop or something but also it works for the league of shadows also bane has like no fewer than eight monologues in this movie amanda are you in on bane so let me be real i remember very little of what happens at dark night rises i essentially remember it's occupy wall street and then i remember at the end they're at a cafe and then i and i don't know anything about bane i love this i think he's so good i

only watched the youtube speeches of which there are about 15. And you're just like, oh my God, another one popped up on related videos. Here I go. So I think I probably watched an hour of the dark night rises and it's just Tom Hardy doing Bane as basically to call back Sean Connery in hunt for red October. He's just like,

I am. I don't even know what he says. I am Gotham's reckoning. Just like as loud as can be is that one of them i mean how many preposterous things does he have to say about every time you think it's gonna be a braveheart speech he's like i am it's like it's like a drunk guy doing yoda at a pub in east london but's so. It's funny. And it's. But it's so funny and weird. That it is kind of unnerving. Like and I do.

And there is his physical presence again. And I think they're just kind of like. Well he's going to be weird. So we're going with it. It's definitely the best part of this movie. Imagine being Tom Hardy. And you get the script for Dark Knight Rises. And there's a sentence in the piece that says, I am the League of Shadows and I'm here to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny. What is happening?

You read this shit all the time. What are you talking about? something and you're kind of like looking at the remaining few minutes. There's like an hour left in the movie and Christian Bale is still in prison in Afghanistan. And you're like, doesn't he have to go back and fight Bane? And then there's like the whole Mary and Cotillard thing. And then they have to like fix like all the bombs that are supposed to go off. And there's

only like 45 minutes left and he's still trying to climb out of this tunnel where dudes are chanting rise and telling him the story of the mercenary and the child and all that stuff. It's wild. I remember when this movie got announced and everybody was like, is it going to be the Riddler?

Is it going to be the Penguin? And they were like, no, Bane. And I was like, who's Bane? I don't know who that is. But it honestly is is like i you you look back longingly on uncomplicated moments of pure joy and uh and and the emergence of bane as a thing i i just me and my friends of who i count you guys as two of my closest which friends was going to say, which friends? We love Bane. Like, we just loved the fact that Bane happened.

Yes. The truth is, the only reason I wanted to do this episode was so that we could talk about Bane. I just think, and if we got to do a spinoff Bane series, we'll do it here on The Big Picture. And frankly, we got to hear from the people. If the people, much like Occupy, want to rise up and transform the big picture into a Bane pod, we'll do it. We'll do it again. Amanda, you know. I'll rewatch the movie.

Glenn Powell is in Dark Knight Rises. I know. That's one of the things I rewatched because he gets thrown around by Tom Hardy on the floor of the trading floor or whatever. Glenn Powell has to be like, this is the trading floor. We don't have money here. And Tom Hardy goes, then why are you here? Guys, it's the floor of the Gotham Stock Exchange. I'll have you know.

Oh, sure. Of course. The Dark Knight Rises goes directly into the top wing of the Tom Hardy Hall of Fame. It is just a marvelous performance and an absolutely ridiculous movie. Next movie, Lawless. Everybody remember Lawless? Do you remember the Halcyon days of Annapurna when Megan Ellison's company was giving money to exciting young filmmakers left and right?

Catherine Bigelow, she got a movie. Spike Jonze, he got a movie. Paul Thomas Anderson, he got a movie. And John Hillcoat also got a movie. John Hillcoat, who was the director of a very cool Australian Western called The Proposition. And then he directed the adaptation of The Road, the Cormac McCarthy novel. And his follow-up to that was an adaptation of The Wettest County in the World, a novel by Matt Bondurant. That, before it came out, I was convinced would be probably the greatest film ever made.

Just based on the setting and the kind of story that it was and the run that Anna Perna was on and the cast, which includes Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Mia Vashikowska, and Dane DeHaan. And Lawless is not the greatest movie of all time, sadly. Any memories or reflections of Lawless? I'll be honest. I just remembered it. I thought you guys all really liked this. But that's like, honestly, my memory of this movie is like, oh, I think... We definitely pretended to.

For sure. All those guys liked this. Okay. Well, congratulations on being honest now. Doesn't Tom Hardy get his throat slit early in this movie and talk like not be able to talk for most of it? I think that's accurate. Yes. Also notable is that Shia LaBeouf is widely believed to have been

completely intoxicated throughout the entire making of this film in a method performance about a bootlegger. So that's tough. It's okay. It's not bad. There are some committed performances.

Guy Pearce, I think, like shaves back his hairline and shaves his eyebrows. Yeah. Is it Pearce or Oldman does the eyebrow thing? I think it's Pearce. I think, shaves back his hairline and shaves his eyebrows. Yeah. Is it Pearce or Oldman does the eyebrow thing? I think it's Pearce. I think you're right.

Yeah. I don't know. Should I do that? Yeah. You're going to shave your eyebrows? I don't have very dark eyebrows in the first place. No, don't shave your eyebrows.

They don't grow back the way you want them to. I'll do it. I will do it for the BanePod for charity. I will shave my eyebrows. So don't grow back the way you want them to. I'll do it. I will do it for the Bane pod for charity. I will shave my eyebrows. So next week on the Bane pod, you will drink your own urine and shave your eyebrows. And only speak as Bane.

Wow. This is going to be some good podcasting. I don't think Lawless goes into the Hall of Fame. Would you guys agree? I agree. I agree. The next movie is 2013's Locke. A movie that I like a lot.

I won't be back for the match. I'll have to listen to it on the radio. Dad, you said you'd be back. It's rubbish on the radio. Mom's doing sausages and all. Yes. It takes place entirely in a car. Hardy plays a Welsh concrete magnate.

A man who is responsible for what is frequently identified as the poor during this film. He's a guy who's going through some emotional turmoil, some struggles with his family and with his business. And it takes place in real time during a late night drive. I seem to recall being immensely moved by this movie that takes place in a car. I have not revisited it since it came out though.

What do you guys remember about lock? Uh, I love lock. It incredible accent work. This is actually, I think legitimately a good Welsh accent to the extent that a man from Philadelphia who now lives in Los Angeles is allowed to evaluate those things.

Um, I would also say it's worth noting that this marks, uh, one of the first significant collaborations between Hardy and Stephen Knight. And they go on to kind of be in each other's orbit a lot over the years, especially with making Taboo a couple of years later.

Locke is just such a strange movie. And it's weird. Tom Hardy definitely seems like he has the goods on somebody where they're like, yeah, so we want to make a movie that's set entirely in a car about a guy who's mostly talking about whether or not a concrete job is working out. And they're like, but Tom Hardy's going to be in it. And they're like, take my money. Let's do it. And I don't understand how

these movies keep getting made like that. But this movie is just strangely affecting. I too had an emotional reaction to it, Sean. There's a lot of talking to the ghost of your father in the backseat going on, although I don't think the dad ever appears. It's just Tom Hardy talking to an empty backseat and a lot of Bluetooth phone calls, man. I like this movie. And it is, I mean, it's that classic movie star thing of can you just carry a movie the entire time um and and Tom Hardy can and I again it's he's not wearing a mask that I recall um and the accent is is good but this is also when it starts to be like the when you get the stunt aspect to Tom Hardy's career and kind of like this is the movie it's the one where he's in a car the entire time

and then there's like the one where he plays twins and the one where he, you know, he wears a mask, which is like five of them. And so I don't want to hold that against this particular movie, but I just wanted to identify the turning point. This is when I realized I was like, oh, you're, you're just going to be doing this now. You're going to be trying a lot of things and trying things is great, but this is the turning point i agree with that it's a good point one of the fun takeaways from just revisiting some scenes is i was reminded of the all-star cast of people on the other end of the phone i'm not sure if you guys remember who some of those voices were but olivia coleman is on isn't appears in this film ruth wilson appears

in this film andrew scott the hot priest appears in this film and playing his son is young Tom Holland. Great stuff. So I'm putting Lock In. I would put Lock In. Yeah. Next is The Drop, which is a movie about Brooklyn full of British people, which is an interesting aspect of the story. Full of Scandinavian people

basically. Yeah. In The Drop, which is sort of a crime drama but mostly seen through the eyes of a regular guy um tom hardy plays bob saganowski a bartender uh in a local brooklyn bar and he has some run-ins with some chechen mobsters and he falls in love with numi repas remember when numi repas was a thing just a just a just a girl from the block. Noomi Rapace. Classic Brooklyn chick. I seem to recall liking this movie too. It's another movie that I've not revisited,

but it is in league with what Amanda was just describing, which is this sort of aggressive over-transformation from British dandy to hang dog Brooklynite. It's a good film it's a small film especially given where Hardy had put been putting a lot of his attention prior to this it

felt like he basically needed a come down after the inception Tinker Taylor warrior this means war Dark Knight rises lawless run of like I'm going for it and only appearing in big ticket

productions he takes on lock and the drop and child 44 to some extent after this to sort of, I don't know, to almost like to reset, you know, to try some new things. I'm not sure if the drop is really worthy of it,

but Chris, I know you like this movie. I do. I like drop a lot written by Dennis Lehane, a really good James Gandolfini performance in this. And it has one of my, a really incredible piece towards the end of the film. I don't want to spoil

what happens, but there's a great scene between Matthias Schoenharts, New Mirror Posse, and Tom Hardy in a bar where Hardy gives a really cool monologue. I think it's one of his

more understated performances, even though he's trying very hard to be a Brooklyn guy. In or out, Chris? In. Okay, we're running up the numbers here. This is going to be problematic.

2015's Child 44, I feel like we can safely skip. Too bad. That was a Richard Price script. There's a lot of really good people in there. The movie just sucked. It just didn't work out. It's funny. It happens sometimes.

That's the other thing about Hardy is he seems to have good taste, even when the films don't totally work out. And I would say that some of these films that are coming up here didn't totally work out. One movie that did totally work out is Mad Max Fury Road. Max. My name is Max.

I don't know if Tom Hardy gets a lot of the credit for that. When I revisit the movie, I certainly don't think of him, even though he is that title character. Amanda, would you make a case for Hardy's work in the movie? Yes, it doesn't work without him. If you have someone who is seen stealing, which he, you know, funny enough, as we've talked about, he often does. But if someone's not going with the flow of the movie or just being bad, then it doesn't work. If you have, say, Mel Gibson in it, it's a different movie. So you just have to put him in there because there is skill in fitting

in and making your own choices within a larger, successful movie. I think also, if you haven't read that oral history, it is worth reading just for how grueling it was for everyone and how Tom Hardy is reflected on his own performance and participation in the production, which I think is interesting. And he has apologized to everyone for a lot of his behavior on the set. But it seemed like it was grueling, but also worth it to everyone involved. So you got to give it to him. Yeah. I mean's in that oral history they talk about i think zoe kravitz talks about having done a chemistry with jeremy renner

um to be in that part obviously it had originally been when they originally tried to mount it it was going to be mel gibson um he has a very kinetic energy that perfectly matches the way that george miller made the movie whether that was on purpose or not i don't know but they talk a lot about how they shot that film in just these little bite-sized pieces. They went through a scene and did it. They were like, you're going to act for eight seconds here while we throw a camera off a truck. And that almost seems to suit him. I wonder what it would look like if it was made more like Road Warrior, it's a little bit more like a classical western style filmmaking. Yeah, I think he gives a great performance, but the story of that movie is the filmmaking

and Charlize. Those are really the two major takeaways from it. Picking good projects is a big part of being worthy of a Hall of Fame. This is probably the best action movie of the 2010s. It's rarefied air. It would just also be really dumb if we didn't put it in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, agreed. Also, a nice mask corrective here. He's made some bad mask movies.

This is one of the great mask movies. 2015's Legend is next. Legend is a portrait of the Cray brothers, the very famous British gangsters. And Tom Hardy, as Amanda alluded to, plays both brothers. These nefarious characters in England's history. And this is a very stylized, very obvious kind of a movie. I think it's directed by Brian Helgeland, who is a longtime screenwriter and has directed a handful of films. And I remember thinking that this movie is perfectly fine and a little bit

rote, but that Hardy is doing something pretty impressive because the brothers are two very different kinds of figures, even though they are clearly related, the, the ticks and the troubles that they're experiencing are very different. So this just seemed, I think a lot of his movies,

one of the hallmarks of them is that he always seems to be giving a very effortful performance. You know, he's the kind of person who you can really like feel the sweat on him at the end of the hallmarks of them is he always seems to be giving a very effortful performance. He's the kind of person who you can really feel the sweat on him at the end of the movie as opposed to I don't know, who's a much more like Brad Pitt is a very graceful kind of actor.

You never really feel him acting or trying to do something or transform. Hardy is in that bare knuckled watch me bend my body into this performance. I just don't love this movie. I don't know how you guys feel about it.

I don't acknowledge movies where one actor plays twins. Wow. Why? Well, there's a really good 1990 movie called The Craze where a pair of brothers actually play The Craze. So it's, I think, better than this film. But I just find it like really like distracting to see.

I don't know why. I can't get my head around it when I see two James Franco's in the deuce or whatever. Like I always kind of find it like I'm hung up on it. Will you make an exception for the social network? I understand that there was some after effects that were. I don't mind it when they are in the background of a movie

somewhat. I do mind it when it's like the whole selling point is the remarkable job this person is doing playing two people. This is a pretty controversial take. This takes a couple of really great movies off the board, Chris. Like what? This takes Dead Ringers off the board, the Jeremy Irons film. I can live without it. Takes Adaptation off the board.

Oh, yeah. I'm not a big Adaptation guy. Wow. I love Adaptation, but I understand what Chris is saying. And that's why I'm kind of in the context of Tom Hardy. I'm hesitant to put this on the list because that's the thing. It's like, oh, he's playing both of them. And I know that he can play like two criminals in different ways. I have seen the rest of Tom Hardy's movies. He can bring pathos and like lots of different textures. So I'll Try This kind of gets in the way of the rest of the movie for me.

This guy clearly loves classical gangsters, though, man. He plays them a bunch. It's true. Chris, wait. Are you out on all iterations of The Parent Trap? Yes. Wow. Yeah.

Okay, let me ask you this. Are you out on the 1980s comedy Twins? Well, they're not played by the same actor. They're not. And that's my thing is I would make an exception if Christopher Nolan wanted to make What If Bane Had a Twin? And Tom Hardy was Bane

and then he had a twin brother named like Mane but Mane was just like a normal guy. Would he speak normally? Or would he speak normally or would yeah everything about it would be like he'd be like he'd be like aims from inception and then his brother was bane bane and aims who says no certainly not me uh we do say no to legend in the hall of fame though next up is a movie that I referenced earlier in this conversation, The Revenant, which I don't is. Couldn't Tom Hardy's character have been played by any number of characters? This kind of feral villain character. I think Fitzgerald.

Is that the name of his character? It's nice that there's a Leo reunion and maybe Leo gets to settle the score after Tom Hardy eats his lunch in Inception in this movie and Leo gets to ride off into the distance with an Oscar here something that Tom Hardy has not received but I I'm not sure that this is the most memorable Tom Hardy performance of all time but I'm also not the biggest fan of the Revenant and I know a lot of people do love that movie what do you guys think think? I agree with you, but I'm also not a huge fan of The Revenant. Yeah, I think like you said, it's like the fifth or

sixth most interesting thing about The Revenant is Tom Hardy being in it, which is saying a lot because Tom Hardy is usually pretty high up there. Ironically, Hardy was nominated for an Oscar for this movie. It's his only Oscar nomination. He also, like so many people we talk about on the show

strikes me as the kind of guy who when he's 62 and makes like a pretty bad movie is going to get recognized for his incredible body of work but you know they weren't able to do so and i don't know lock came out or warrior or any of the other films that are really a big part of this hall of fame so we're saying no to the revenant despite the fact that it features his academy award nomination or do we have to put it in for you know points of order purposes I just counted and we already have 10 and we have a few more films to discuss so I think if no one is excited about it it's our own Hall of Fame yeah I think this feels like this feels like the Saving Private Ryan of this of this Hall of Fame I can feel I can already feel the heat coming for us. That's okay. Let's keep moving.

We've got three more films to discuss. Don't let anybody tell you how to think, man. Come on. Did you learn that from Selina Kyle in the choppo trap house of Dark Knight Rises? A storm is coming. The next film is Dunkirk, a movie that I know you both love

and that I was dubious on for a long time and was swayed after doing the rewatchables on. Also a performance largely in a mask through a muffled vocal recording. But also, the figure that he represents in the movie is probably the most important thing in the movie. So this kind of feels like a no-brainer. But what do you guys think? I was going to insist that we include it.

I watched the last scene on the beach before we did this podcast and was very overwhelmed. And that one shot of him as the soldiers come in is just like, you can't buy that. Just the presence and the ability to connect with the audience. It's A+. We have to put this in. Best line in the movie. My favorite part. My favorite storyline of the movie,

him and Jack Loudon. Most like obvious, like heroist heroism, active heroism, and just the ability to act with your eyes while also flying a vintage plane and get the fuck out of here. Put him in the hall of fame. Okay.

Dunkirk goes in venom. Here we go. Come on, Eddie. Speak, Sean. It's your time. This is your favorite movie. One thing about Venom is that it rules.

It is an absolutely hilarious, deeply weird, and astonishing film. And it deserves all of its success it is simultaneously not really very good at all but in a way i don't care because it is a perfect example of hardy just doing whatever he wants like willing a movie with his weirdness to become interesting and venom is a character who appeals to teenage boys. I certainly as a teenage boy was into the Venom figure in the Spider-Man universe. I don't think that this

movie really has very much to do with that universe at all. It does not make an effort to do that. It seems like much more of a playpen for Tom Hardy to talk to himself, even though there are no twins in this movie. he's basically doing id versus super ego throughout the whole movie. It's really funny and slapsticky. And I think if it were positioned that way a little bit more clearly, which is clearly what Tom Hardy would interest in him about it, I think it would have a different reputation. I think when people think of it as a violent comic book movie with an alien suit inside of it, they're like, this sounds really dumb. But if you think of it a lot more in the lineage of, I don't know, Peter Sellers movies, I think it actually does really work well. And I do think that that's kind of what he's after in this movie.

Now, there are also crazy violent special effects in the movie. But Tom Hardy is funny and is strange enough to sell shit like this. And I just think it's all about how you see it. I'm sure you guys have dissenting opinions on this. I think Venom is a great film about journalism. Eddie Brock taught me it was okay to be weird. I don't know what you want me to say. You know what the best thing in the fucking world is?

Is when you look at Tom Hardy's 2017 through 2021. And it's just Star Wars Last Jedi, deleted scene as a robot, or as like a stormtrooper, vet 2018, Venom, 2020, Capone, 2021, Venom, colon, let there be carnage. What a fucking lord.

You skipped one thing. What? Your beloved taboo. Oh? Your beloved taboo. Oh, yeah, taboo. Yeah. Yeah, James Delaney. Do you want to talk about taboo now, or should we keep talking about how great Venom is?

No, I mean, I made my case, and my case is 100% bulletproof, and it's going in the Hall of Fame. So you can speak on taboo if you like. Taboo is really telling. It is a dream project for him you know and that is isn't it strange when we get those and you're like so this is your dream huh you know like you you they gave you all the all the chips and you cash them in and you made a a miniies about a bearded guy who comes back to London and basically claims the Dutch East India Trading Company for himself.

And I found it to be absolutely fascinating and invigorating to watch, but it is the most acquired taste of acquired tastes. I couldn't get through 22 minutes of the first episode. I'll be honest i didn't even try because i heard chris give his impassioned taboo island speeches and i was like that's great chris has found his thing and sometimes and i say this with love chris and i want you to know that i want there to be things in the world for you that you love and enjoy but sometimes there's a thing that is like so chris ryan i'm just like okay i'm good

that's for chris and i'll go find my thing honestly same for venom still haven't seen it the number of times that sean has told me that it came out the same weekend as a star is born and that that weekend october is the most important weekend for studio releases now heard it many many times i know what venom's about It's nice that you guys have your things. I don't know that there is a case. There might be a case for Venom. I don't know if there's a case for Taboo in the Hall of Fame. I think that I'm okay with Taboo staying on Taboo Island.

And on Taboo Island, we can open up a little gift shop for it. You know, but we don't have to put it in the Hall of Fame. I think Amanda needs to watch Venom because in the event that an alien symbiote comes to this country. When are you guys going to do a movie swap again? Do it for movie swap. It's a great idea. I'll watch Venom again and you watch Venom

and then we just talk about Venom. Cool story. It's great. That's how literally every other episode of this podcast works. It's fine. I'm glad that you have Venom. The nice thing about Venom was like it was successful.

It was a thing. You talk about it and you guys could have your nice thing and I didn't really have to enjoy it. And that makes me happy. It does also seem just in terms of Tom Hardy being able to do whatever he wants and then have a movie make a lot of money, it should go in the Hall of Fame. We reward that even if we don't enjoy the content necessarily.

Yeah, I think it's his sort of biggest standalone hit. You know, Michelle Williams is in that movie, which is an amazing thing to think about. But for the most part, it is just about Tom Hardy. He's in almost every scene and every moment of the movie, and he carries it in a way that he doesn't even carry Mad Max Fury. Did he get enough credit for Venom? Well, he's getting it right now.

He's a blessed individual and he chose to take all that stock that he had and cash out with Capone. And would you say Capone belongs in the Tom Hardy Hall of Fame, guys? No. I would not.

I don't even think it's a particularly good Tom Hardy performance. I don't either think it's a particularly good Tom Hardy performance. I don't either. I've seen it before. I agree with you. I agree with you. So let's go through the films that we've identified here

for the Hall of Fame. I think we're gonna have to cut a couple. The rules are 10, right? The rules are 10. Number one, Black Hawk Down. Number two, Rock and Roll. And number three, Bronson. Number four, Inception.

Number five, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Number six, Warrior. Number seven, The Dark Knight Rises. Number eight, Locke. Number four, Inception. Number five, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Number six, Warrior. Number seven, The Dark Knight Rises. Number eight, Locke. Number nine, The Drop. Number ten, Mad Max Fury Road. Number 11, Dunkirk. And number 12, Venom. That means we got to cut two movies. This should be pretty easy. Let's cut Blackhawk down. Yeah, I think that's easy. Even though it was his big entry into the business and he worked with Ridley Scott out of the shoot.

Amanda, is this your favorite part of the Hall of Fame episodes is when Sean all of a sudden gets really defensive about cutting. About things he like didn't even care about. Two line cameos, yeah. I am the person who was like, oh, we can see, we'll put it in now. Yes, Sean, even in spite of those things, because we have honored like the

true breakthrough moment of his career later on in this list and i hate to say this because i i know that we've been going for a while but we didn't really do extracurricular activities here did we like we didn't really do qualifies fun viral videos that he made with Riz Ahmed during the Venom press tour or Tom Hardy reading children's stories to people on YouTube or Amanda. Very classic. Tom Hardy playing with a puppy. Tom Hardy's MySpace photos. Really any Tom Hardy interview, he's pretty good at them. The talk show. There are some talk show roundups that I recommend. Tom Hardy's dad being named Chips. Yeah, that's true. Would you like to put that in over Blackhawk Down?

No, I just thought I'd throw those out there just to say that there's a lot of other Hardy out there. Okay, fair enough. He's a figure of a variety. You know, he's not just confined to the movie screen. He's coming into our homes frequently. I wish that he was just a little bit more present as a celebrity because I get a kick out of him. He's a real prankster.

So we have to cut one more. So yeah, Black Hawk Down is out. So we'll cut one more movie. Now, my instinct is the drop. That's what I was going to push for. But that was a Chris and Sean moment. Is Layer Cake and Rock and Roll on there? No, just Rock and Rolla. Handsome Bob or Bob Saginowski? Chris, it's up to you. Those are two very meaningful performances to you. Shit. I really like him as Handsome Bob.

But Bob Saginowski seems important because he was like, I'll just play a guy. I'm going to go Handsome Bob. I don't think important is the word. I'm going to go Handsome Bob. You're cutting Handsome Bob. No, I'm keeping play a guy. I'm going to go handsome Bob. I'm going to go handsome Bob. You're cutting handsome Bob. No, I'm keeping handsome Bob because I rewatch.

I watch rock and roll more than I watch The Drop. Out goes The Drop. We've got 10 films in the Hall of Fame. How do we feel about this? We literally left out the one Oscar nominated

performance here. That's okay. It's fine. It's supporting. You know, weird stuff happens in that category you were the one who made the case you're you're the daniel caffey of keeping revenant out of this hall of fame chris here's the thing much like bane i'm just about disrupting the status quo

you know i just want people to be on their heels at all times off your toes on your heels then it's great that we don't include the oscar nominated performance that's disrupting the status quo there you go have you guys seen venom oh the darkness is your arrow what an amazingly uh useful edifice we've constructed here on this podcast today we need people to know unconditionally. We need to make it very clear that Tom Hardy, we love Tom Hardy. But when you come to the Hall of Fame, there's

the nine movies and then there's the Bane wing. It's not a bit. We're not joking. Bane matters. Right? I couldn't have said it better myself. Bane matters. Yes. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Bane matters. Yes. I'm so happy to have a new avatar of greatness for this show. We welcome Bane firmly into the Big Pictures Hall of Fame with this episode.

Guys, thanks for doing this. Speaking of all of these damned Christopher Nolan movies and Bane, next week Amanda and I are going to be talking about probably the most controversial thing happening in the world of movies right now,

which is whether or not Nolan's next movie tenant is actually going to be coming to movie theaters in July. So please tune in next week for that. Thanks to Bobby Wagner. And thanks of course, Chris and Amanda. We'll see you guys next week. Stock exchange.

There's no money you can steal. Really? Then why are you people here? Thank you.