You’re never sure what you’re watching in “The
Untouchables.” Desson Howe said in his review, “There's an entertaining but
incongruous mix of class and pulp. Director Brian De Palma gives you an
esoteric tribute to "Battleship Potemkin" -- a Russian film of the
1920s -- as well as a dip into the pulp-lore of the old Warner Brothers gangster
flicks. He gives you "The Magnificent Seven Wear Armani," and then a
period "Roadrunner."”
Howe continues, “De Palma and screenwriter David
Mamet have doctored Eliot Ness's true account of his battle against Al Capone's
empire into a facile Hollywood pantomime, where you hiss and boo at the Mob and
cheer the four Fearless Cops just doin' their job. The gritty story of 1930s
Chicago becomes grist for the 1980s Lite-legend mill. Just the heroics, please,
Ma'am.”
The true story definitely gives this treatment. Al
Capone really did control Chicago, his violent nature in everything – even had
a scarred face. On top of being played by the incomparable (and fat to
depiction) Robert De Niro, he’s a smirking suave with a Mussolini walk. Howe
noted, “In a scene cribbed from the baptismal murders in "The
Godfather," he orders an assassination while crying ethnically at the
opera. He's a bum in expensive clothing -- slugs his lawyer when his trial goes
awry and beats a flunkie's brains out at an elegant dinner party.” You didn’t
think De Palma would exclude any of this detail did you?
Howe noted, “Eliot Ness, as portrayed in his 1957
book "The Untouchables," was American Gothic-straight, determined to
wipe out crime with a near-messianic sense of purpose. He was America's
straitlaced Gordon of the Nile, or Robert Baden-Powell. For Ness, if it was the
law -- good law or bad law -- it had to be obeyed.”
As a result, it’s unnecessary to criticize Kevin
Costner’s Ness for being a stick-in-the-mud. However, there’s little about this
novel character to understand with. Despite there being a storm of murdering
crimes around him, he’s calm, boring eye of the crime. Mamet gives Ness a wife
and children, guessing to make his character humane. However, as a husband and
father, Ness is only halfway – an explosive person. “Sure is nice to be
married,” he keeps saying. You wonder why.
Howe notes, “As a Treasury Department agent assigned
to break Capone, he sleepwalks into a palm-greasy town, naive as a Boy Scout.”
However, he assigns veteran Irish cop Jimmy Malone, played by Sean Connery, as
a generous Svengali, to show him the ways of Windy Hades. They also get a
street-smart, quick with a gun Italian cop (Andy Garcia) and a disabled, bespectacled
accountant (Charles Martin Smith) to their team and they become a type of
foursome who can’t be bought – hence “the Untouchables.” This is where the guns
start firing.
While Mamet gives the four characters some moments
of funny friend fights – the underrated Connery gives the human force here –
his characters are melodramatic plot points (mother of murdered child, dishonest
cop, and cover). Howe ended his review by saying, “And some of De Palma's shoot 'em up and chase
scenes, while initially exciting, wear out their welcomes because De Palma
tends to render everything into movie-brat rhapsody. Things seem to drag lushly
on forever. And although he can make a scene explosive with dynamic editing and
overhead camera angles, after a while you may start to think you're a
voyeuristic -- and very dizzy -- seagull.”
If you haven’t seen this movie, don’t read the
review and go out and watch this. This is one of those movies you have to see
because it is a classic. You will absolutely love the characters, the look, the
sets, the design, the costumes, the actors, the dialogue, the action,
everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a good adaptation of the novel
that does it justice and really follows the history right. Do not miss your chance to see this movie; it’s one of those that I
have a high recommendation to that
has to be seen to be believed.
Look out next week where I look at another classic
movie in “Kevin Costner Month.”
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