The Fanatic & Capone: Redbox Cracks Making Movies

What does the directorial debut of Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst and the career revival of Josh Trank both have in common? Redbox made them possible. That’s right. They’re doing more these days than putting vending machines full of movies in front of your local McDonalds, Walmart, and other select retailers. While they have put together other movies under their production label Redbox Entertainment, the impact of The Fanatic and Capone from a perspective of buzz rivals that of any announcements, we regularly get from other more well-known production companies.

The first time I can assume we collectively had started to give them our attention was when the news broke out that Fred Durst began work on a horror movie starring John Travolta. If it had been any other director who previously made their mark in the horror film industry, the talk surrounding the movie would be more positive, but still less of a splash to those who are otherwise not fans of the genre. ‘Director of [insert a horror movie you liked but never saw more than a handful of times here] to direct a horror movie with a well-known actor’… It just doesn’t grab your attention the way that ‘Singer of a well meme’d band to direct a horror movie with a well-known actor’ does. I’m not at all sad to say The Fanatic is a fun time.

If you have a place in your heart for Misery and not The Fanatic, then that hypocrisy on you. If you regularly go to events celebrating a person’s work, you know damn well John Travolta nailed it. The movie is so aware of what it is and doesn’t pull back that I feel the people that are the most adamant about ripping it apart are the people that saw themselves in the mirror and didn’t like what they see… Or they’re just bitter as hell and don’t know how to have fun.

We now transition to a movie that no one saw coming from a filmmaker that we collectively were certain we’d seen the last of. Not many announcements were made of Capone, but when they were, the general thought was that it wasn’t real. Why? Because of the torrent of drama that surrounded director Josh Trank’s last time on a set, Fant4stic. When the stills of Tom Hardy’s disturbing yet beautiful Al Capone makeup/fx have been released, it caused a relative but lesser stir to that of The Fanatic’s announcement. Capone is not the only redemption for Josh Trank, but easily his best movie to date. “But it isn’t a horror movie, so what do I care???” Surprise fuckers! Horror is absolutely an ingredient in this cocktail of a movie.

Following the last year of his life, Al Capone is LITERALLY haunted by his past as everyone around him is a fuse leading to a satisfying explosion. I’m spoiling nothing here other than if you have a lust for blood and overall spooky shit, you will be satisfied. For any fans of Run the Jewels, El-P’s first feature-length outing as a composer compliments the deteriorating psychology Capone establishes. As you can guess, I loved this movie too and suggested you check it out.

I’d go so far as to say you’ll find a fun double feature in The Fanatic and Capone. For only one of these movies to be made and not, the other would have me inclined to think what Redbox would be trying to do was a magic trick. Both of these movies held side by side leads me to think that it’s no coincidence, and we are certainly going to see Redbox Entertainment make (for lack of a better term) a certain kind of movie for a certain kind of audience again soon…