TOM HARDY

EVIL FOLLOWS GOOD IN JUST ABOUT EVERY STORY KNOWN TO HUMANITY

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The screen character struggles with the darker side of human nature from film to film, sometimes winning the battle, but often losing, with a lot of collateral damage left in the street in the process.

The films would not be all that interesting without the life and death struggle of good over evil.

Twombly quietly gears up in the near background as part of a United States Marine intervention force in Somalia during a famine induced genocide in Black Hawk Down (2001).

The character survives the chaos of a high casualty count as the rogue gangs amass along the streets to surprise the unprepared military contingent. The Marines escape in the end, and the actor soon enough moves the character closer into the foreground of the main narrative of the next films that are produced one after another for a generation.

The next film role for Tom Hardy was the type that could teleport his career to instant stardom as Shinzon in Star Trek Nemesis (2002). After Somalia, Hardy could have still played the dashing young lad in a smart suit purchased along High Street near Piccadilly Circus, but he chose to play the villain in an intergalactic adventure.

The film produces a defining image of the screen character Hardy will put together for roles that run the spectrum of evil and that explain the fragility of humanity, constantly being moved by temptation from good to evil and then back again.

Hardy adds nuances to the character over the years, often making hatred and violence hide behind the goodness his character holds in reserve for public display.

In Lawless (2012) Shia Labouf, Jason Clarke and Jessica Chastain costar with Hardy as a tight family of Virginia country folks manufacturing moonshine during the Depression Era Prohibition.

Hardy plays the older brother as the patriarch in charge of the operation when the Franklin County Sherif department enlists a Chicago special prosecutor to shake down the bootlegging industry.

The family protects their interests with as much evil as necessary, avoiding direct retaliation against the corrupt police only when their own lives become threatened.

In the next film, Hardy personifies the total evil necessary to overturn a corrupt society.

In The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Hardy plays a masked villain leading a clandestine militia that intends to bring down society because life in Gotham City has fallen sideways. The battle takes on biblical proportions with Hardy portraying Bane as possessing the pure evil that exists in tyrants.

The brute force strength of Bane, combined with the mask that anonymizes the personality of the character, and thereby focuses attention on the action of the dark shadowy figure, projects a visceral, existential fear.

When Batman, played by Christian Bale, and Bane inevitably confront each other in a dark underworld, the veracity of the conflict projects the struggle to the death, ongoing within each of us, between humanity’s good and evil tendencies.

In Legend (2015) Hardy plays twin brothers, Ronald and Reginald, who just happen to be gangsters. Reginald is the more sophisticated brother who can maintain a public image as a respected nightclub owner. Ronald, on the other hand, is a paranoid schizophrenic whose darker side keeps bubbling up uncontrollably.

The twin gangsters fall back on violence when business matters don’t exactly go their way – Ronald just gets there a lot quicker than Reginald. The characters personify the extreme versions of good and evil that from time to time emerge on the streets.

Reginald may be looking at a caricature of himself when he looks at his brother, Ronald, until he begins to lash out as he is incrementally overcome by evil impulses.

Hardy almost uses up all his ideas for his screen character in playing the dual roles, even turning the brothers against each other in another struggle to the death. But instead of tapping out, the talented actor reintegrates the characters for his next blockbuster film role.

In Mad Max Furry Road (2015) Max does what he must do to survive. As a captured prisoner, Max becomes a ruthless fighter who jeopardized his own life for the greater safety of freedom.

In George Miller’s post-apocalyptic world, Hardy joins Charlize Theron, Zoe Kravitz, Rosie Huntington, Abbey Lee and Riley Keough as fugitives fleeing a tyrannical ruler holding young women as sex slaves, and young men as expendable blood donors. The entire civilization turns on the tyrant turning the community water supply on and off.

Max has all the ruthless tools to survive a collapsed civilization, but he still needs help to find the same freedom that Furiosa seeks for her fellow escapees. Hardy creates a bond by showing just enough of his character’s ruthlessness to be respected, and just enough of his benevolent side to be trusted.

The corruption of the collapsed society brings out the darker side of an otherwise benevolent character.

Hardy then shows humanity struggling to survive in nature for the Alejandro G. Inarritu historical film, set during the 1820s fur trading era, The Revenant (2015).

Fitzgerald needs the pay from the fur trading expedition to move on to a gentler occupation down south. Leonardo Di Caprio stars as Hugh Glass, the expedition’s guide, who gets mauled by a grizzly bear and is left for dead by the remaining expedition that are fearful of another attack by an Indigenous war party.

Hardy becomes embroiled in the master-slave morality of the era during which good and evil of any singular action is determined by the outcome. Life is just that brutal on the frontier, often requiring extraordinary measures to survive not just the natural environment but the competing interests of white settlers and Indigenous occupiers.

DiCaprio steals the spotlight as his character becomes the victim of evil after Hardy’s character clearly chooses incorrectly – even for the brutal circumstances in which less severe acts of violence are considered acceptable.

In Capone (2020) the Chicago gangster is depicted in his last years without any filters that control the propensity for violence and frequent random violent outburst. Capone is depicted to be so uncontrollably violent that his presence even threatens close family and friends on his Florida Estate.

Hardy portrays Capone as surrounded by family and friends but consumed with his battle with syphilis, ongoing since a young age, which has finally taken control of the last bits of what good character and gentle impulses may have still survived the disease.

The screen character has been allowed to grow and mature through the films – materializing in various forms. In MobLand (Series 2025) Hardy plays the role of an enforcer for an organized crime family. Hardy plays that sophisticated tough guy who can turn off good, and turn on evil whenever necessary.

Harry works for the criminal patriarch Conrad Harrigan, played by Pierce Brosnan, with Helen Mirren costarring as the family matriarch. Hardy as Harry is respected throughout the criminal underworld but a conflict between crime families escalates beyond his control.

Harry is nevertheless put to task when necessary, and shows the skills of an experienced insider.

The screen character created by Hardy is never exactly the same person – often personifying the various definitions of a fragile humanity and the need to survive the human condition in difficult circumstances, torn by having to choose between the inevitable outcomes that occur from good and evil acts of survival.

Evil, though, seems in greater supply, as an antagonist to the better nature of the soul, as Hardy works with revenge, hatred, pride, sometimes ignorance, injustice and trauma, regardless on which side of the moral divide his film character finds a role on the big screen.