Although the actor’s most recent film, Capone, accentuates his savage and intimidating on-screen persona, Hardy’s outstanding parts by Peter Bradshaw reveal a different side to him.
Locke (2013)
When you consider that all the films that made him famous appeared to be hiding the same traits of delicacy and compassion that he demonstrates here, you realize that this is Hardy’s best hour, a picture that reveals what he can actually achieve as an actor. The whole movie is just one long shot of Hardy’s character, British construction manager Ivan Locke, driving about while talking on his hands-free cell phone to the people who matter to him. In the Midlands, he was going to oversee the pouring of hundreds of tons of wet cement into the foundations of a new building. He is a reliable, professional, and unemotional person. Locke has left the scene, heading south toward London, just when his presence is most required there. Hardy’s superb less-is-more acting conveys the terrible toll this is taking on him personally during a marriage crisis and the emotional breakdown he is trying to hide. This performance has vocal and physical qualities reminiscent of Richard Burton but is otherwise unique.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
This is the Hardy film that most of his followers consider to be his best. A post-apocalyptic Australian desert is the setting for George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, a weird convoy-chase action fantasy in which a warlord controls oil, water, firearms, and milk. Hardy portrays the stoic Max Rockatansky, a former interceptor lawman and now a lone wolf tortured by thoughts of the wife and kid he couldn’t rescue (the role Mel Gibson portrayed in the original). He is seized by a vengeful chieftain and carried to his fortress, but he and the beautiful Charlize Theron manage to escape. Together with Max, she will spearhead a resistance movement against the patriarchal regime that treats women like property. Hardy’s craggy but sensuously full-lipped visage and powerful, forceful, angry presence make him a living cartoon of wrath in the desert heat, even if the film is silent.
The Drop (2014)
This is undoubtedly the most typically likable and heroic of Hardy’s starring characters in films. Hardy portrays a pleasant, average person named Bob who works in a bar run by his gloomy cousin Marv (James Gandolfini) in a Boston crime thriller based on a tale by Dennis Lehane. Chechen bandits utilize the location as a stash for their illicit funds. Bob saves a dog from a neighboring garbage can, and this kind, selfless deed ushers forth a chain of devastating events. Since Hardy’s face and style have never been prone to ingratiation, Bob stands out as a rare exception in his body of work. As a result of being harassed by a local officer and falsely accused by him of failing the church, his character is also rather weak. The Drop is an exception in Hardy’s body of work, yet it may foreshadow what’s to come in his future.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
John Le Carré’s spy novels are not at all like James Bond’s romanticized illusions. His is a world full of boring men in boring suits trying not to think about their own shoddy, shameful deals and betrayals. However, Hardy’s Ricki Tarr is the closest thing the drama has to a 007 figure in this outstanding adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He’s a youthful, physically fit spy with a flair for daring and womanizing who reports back to Gary Oldman’s Smiley in spectacular fashion from his assignment in Istanbul. Hardy dons a reddish-blonde wig and a sheepskin jacket to play a character who is not as well off as the rest. Hardy pulls off the ridiculous outfit with ease, and it fits in well with the time period. If Hardy could only get with the program, he’d make a great Bond.
The Revenant (2015)
Hardy might have just as well played the main character, but this was his most straightforwardly malevolent performance. Hugh Glass, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, was a real-life 19th-century frontiersman who helped set up a fur-trapping camp in Missouri. John Fitzgerald, played by Hardy, is one of the dishonest coworkers who leaves Glass to his death when their group is attacked by a warrior tribe and then demands additional payment for reportedly burying Glass in a Christian cemetery. Glass, however, has managed to avoid death and return for revenge. Hardy’s role is symbolic; he represents all that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is up against, thus he must be a formidable antagonist rather than a simple villain. His ominous, antagonistic appearances at the film’s outset and close indicate that a major showdown is on the horizon.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Another of Hardy’s career-defining performances, this one catapulted him to stardom. In the third and final installment of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Hardy portrays the villainous Bane, who faces a battle against Batman. Bane, the head of a subterranean army of the disenchanted, is a guy who wears a thick leather respirator to cover his horrible ugliness. Worst of all, it takes a lot of effort to make out what he’s saying since his voice is muffled by the mask. He plays the bass accordion while yelling like Darth Vader via a Harley Davidson exhaust system. Hardy, however, always puts in 110% of his effort.
Inception (2010)
Hardy is a member of the hacking group led by Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an industrial espionage hacker whose specialty is into people’s psyches to steal their commercially vital secrets, in Nolan’s dizzyingly hi-tech, high-concept intellectual thriller. Or, in this situation, to plot the origin of an idea that would destroy a company. Cobb’s man, Eames Hardy, is an expert imposter whose ability to assume several identities comes in handy when trying to manipulate the opposition. Nolan’s picture pulls out all of Hardy’s dormant flair and menace, and the part is more polished, sleek, and sinuous than what we’re used to seeing from him.
Legend (2015)
In the dual role of Reggie and Ronnie Kray, the repulsive cockney brothers who governed East End gangland in the 1960s, Hardy proves he is up to the challenge of playing twins. Ronnie is completely bonkers and wears glasses, whereas Reggie is the sane one without the extra poundage. Hardy’s Ronnie, who insists on his own homosexuality in a growling voice a la terrifying Tommy Cooper, has a permanent pop-eyed look of psychotic disgust. Reggie, with his relative normalcy, has a better chance of becoming the film’s romantic lead.
London Road (2015)
A movie opera based on the Ipswich serial murderer case of 2006, in reporting verbatim form, culled from eyewitness stories – adapted from the stage play at London’s National Theatre, was one of the most shocking cinematic experiences of the previous decade, and it was directed by the underappreciated Rufus Norris. Minicab driver Mark, played by Hardy, has a choric role and sings about how knowledgeable he is on the topic of psychopathic murder. As if to clear his name, he insists, “I’ve studied serial killers; it doesn’t mean I am one.” (But there’s an unsettling wait before the words “I am one.”) Hardy has never been so close to Travis Bickle as he is here.
Bronson (2008)
The Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn’s film is widely credited by Hardy experts as the catalyst for the actor’s meteoric rise to fame. To play Charles Bronson (a self-given name, having been born Michael Peterson), a notorious British prisoner whose bizarre delusions and propensity for violence in jail have kept him banged up for the past three decades, he gained 100 pounds (giving him a new Russell Crowe-type beefiness and solidity). Like a droll and stylish music hall act, Bronson speaks straight to the crowd. The picture is offbeat, but Tom Hardy gives a memorable performance.
Capone (2020)
Hardy gives a peculiar but compelling portrayal of a decrepit Al Capone serving out the last year of his life in Florida under house arrest, where he is afflicted with dementia, syphilis, hallucinations, and an embarrassing tendency to soil himself under pressure. In both Italian and English, Hardy rasps and growls his obscenities.
Dunkirk (2017)
Despite the fact that this is only a cameo appearance, it comes from the filmmaker who cast Hardy in some of his most memorable films. Dunkirk, the miraculous triumph over loss in the face of overwhelming odds, is the setting. Here, thousands of British troops were saved from the beaches of northern France by an intrepid flotilla of tiny boats. Due to the public’s perception that the Royal Air Force did not offer enough air support during the evacuation, the character of Farrier, played by Tom Hardy, takes on added importance.
Warrior (2011)
It was universally agreed upon at the time that this movie absolutely killed it in the action department. Tommy, portrayed by Hardy, is a war veteran who, after serving in Iraq, returns to Philadelphia to confront his alcoholic and abusive father, Paddy (Nick Nolte). Tommy’s brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) turns out to be his opponent in his mixed martial arts career, and Tommy’s father reluctantly agrees to teach him. It’s formulaic, but Hardy brings a smoldering charm to the role.
Lawless (2012)
Considering his woolly clothing in this gonzo-violent mafia movie set during the Prohibition period, Hardy, who is not particularly renowned for patterned knitwear, maybe should be. He’s Virginia’s stoic hooch runner, Forrest Bondurant, whose jumper could use a good wash. Howard, portrayed by Jason Clarke, is his older brother, and Jack, played by Shia LaBeouf, is his anxious younger sibling. The picture benefits from Hardy’s deliberate pace and calm demeanor.
The Reckoning (2002)
Hardy took a risk by playing a gender-bending figure in this offbeat 14th-century film; he clearly felt secure in his own masculinity. Straw, portrayed by Hardy, is a specialist in cross-dressing and applying lipstick with exquisite perfection, and the show comprises a roaming troop of performers commanded by Willem Dafoe.
Child 44 (2015)
This heavy version of the historical bestseller, set in the Soviet Union after World War II and based on a true case, features Hardy very much in his broodingly stoic hunk phase. Hardy portrays Leo Demidov, the soldier who raised the Red Flag above Berlin’s Reichstag in 1945 and later became a police officer there. His uncompromising refusal to condemn his wife on a trumped-up allegation has made him an enemy of the dictatorship, even if he is on the trail of a serial murderer. The picture packs a lot of punch, but Hardy gives his performance some acting strength.
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Hardy plays Raumont, a dissatisfied aristocrat at Marie Antoinette’s court, a young intriguer who is a keen enough player in the power dynamics of the day but without the rank to which he feels he is due. His role is small and he does not speak a line. Hardy isn’t as prominent as he might be since he doesn’t quite pass muster as a pretty-boy figure and hasn’t yet developed his heavier, more manly appearance.
Venom (2018)
Hardy is one of the few actors who could convincingly play either a superhero or a supervillain in a Marvel film, and he deserves a prominent part in one. You’ll have to go elsewhere; this isn’t it. Here he plays the role of Eddie Brock, a tough reporter who takes on corporate villains in a weekly web series. But then, the wicked corporate behemoths he exposes on his show import a symbiotic alien creature from outer space, and he “fuses” with it, becoming the hideous Venom. Hardy has never been one for big comedic elements.
This Means War (2012)
Hardy fans shouldn’t get their hopes up for this one, but kudos to him for branching out into the realm of lighthearted capers. Hardy portrays a federal agent who is super tough, a cockney superload with a V-necked sweater and a simian gait, in this frenzied, forced comedy. Chris Pine, a hunk with style and substance, is his companion. Both men are smitten with the lovely Reese Witherspoon and decide to use their spy gear to keep tabs on one another when they’re on dates with her. They could have used Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson instead.
Rocknrolla (2008)
Tom Hardy’s career hasn’t had quite as many mockney-geezery characters as you would assume, but he does have a stint in this and in Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake, where he portrays one of the slacker members of a team managed by Daniel Craig’s icy professional cocaine dealer. A kind of a lairy bastard with a hidden emotional life, he co-stars alongside Idris Elba as Handsome Bob in Guy Ritchie’s infamous gangster movie. The picture made my teeth ache, although Hardy contributes some of his signature obnoxious charm.
