The Untouchables

I never could quite reconcile Kevin Costner's somewhat-high and weak voice with some of macho characters he played when he was younger, but I can get past that after a film has settled into the story. Costner is a good enough actor to make me believe he's anyone after awhile.

However, after years of growing up watching Robert Stack playing "Elliot Ness" on TV on the hit series, "The Untouchables," it took me a bit to accept Costner in that role. That part will always belong to Mr. Stack.

At first, he just did not speak with the authority of a tough Chicago cop out to get Al Capone and the racketeers from the Prohibition Age in Chicago. His partner, "Oscar Wallace," played by the little nerdy-looking Charles Martin Smith as a gun-toting T-Man, is even harder to believe. Of the "good guys," Andy Garcia is the only likeble and believable guy. Sean Connery has the best character in the film ("Jim Malone") and is the most interesting to watch.

Nonetheless, it's a good story with good characters and just about he right amount of action. It moves very well, which tells me the movie is entertaining. There are a few memorable scenes, such as the shootout at the train station with the baby carriage descending the stairway and a memorable scene with Robert De Niro as Capone.

This is a tough, very violent and bloody movie.....nothing like the old TV show.

In 1919, over the veto of President Wilson, the Volstead Act was passed, which made provisions for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, and successfully ushered in the era of Prohibition; what it did not do, was keep people from drinking, or more significantly, keep certain `businessmen' from selling it, which opened the flood gates to a billion dollar industry of illegal alcohol. And in the larger cities, the mob bosses jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet, the most notorious of which was Al Capone, who by 1930 had a thriving business and the city and the people of Chicago in his pocket. From the cop on the beat to the judges sitting on the highest courts, everyone seemingly had a price and could be bought. And that's the way it was until Treasury Agent Eliot Ness showed up for work and hand picked a squad of honest cops to help him get Capone and clean up the City of Chicago. `The Untouchables,' directed by Brian De Palma, is the story of Ness and his men, dubbed `Untouchable' because they couldn't be bought, though from the beginning the odds were stacked against them. They were a handful against an army of hoodlums who wielded grenades and tommy guns, and they could trust no one outside of their own circle, not even the cops with whom they shared the streets. Many looked upon what Ness was trying to do as an exercise in futility, but he never gave up, and went after Capone with everything he had, which wasn't much beyond his own guts and determination to `do some good.'

Ness's initial efforts were a disaster-- Capone had informants everywhere and always knew ahead of time whenever a raid was going down-- so he quickly realized that the only way to do this thing right was to get men he could trust and keep everything quiet. The bureau responded by sending Ness (Kevin Costner) an accountant, Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), who first had the idea of going after Capone for income tax evasion. Ness then recruited Jim Malone (Sean Connery), a veteran cop who walked a beat and was well versed in doing things `The Chicago way,' and George Stone (Andy Garcia) a crack shot recruited right out of the Police Academy.

Connery gives an exemplary performance as Malone (for which he received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), the tough, Irish cop who becomes something of a tutor to Ness, letting him know from the start what he's getting himself into. How do you deal with someone of Capone's ilk? According to Malone, `If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way-- that's how you get Capone.' It's a perfect part for Connery, whose rugged appearance and demeanor are entirely convincing; he's got that somewhat cynical, world-wise and weary manner of a man who has seen it all, but lets you know that underneath he still holds out hope that some day in some way, right will win out after all. And Connery plays it with a hard, uncompromising edge that makes it so believable, and makes Malone a memorable character. De Palma brings it all vividly to life, building an underlying tension from the beginning that he maintains throughout the film, aided by the intense, sometimes haunting score by Ennio Morricone. Costner gives a solid performance as Ness, but he is somewhat overshadowed by the actors and the characters who surround him, especially Connery as Malone, and Robert De Niro, who as Capone is absolutely menacing and larger-than-life. De Niro captures the ruthlessness that indelibly marked Capone's infamy forever in the annals of criminal history, with a portrayal of him that is arguably the best in cinematic history. De Niro plays it as it lays, presenting Capone as the brutal criminal he was, without attempting to airbrush away any of the attributes that made him so despicable. It's a terrific performance, for which he should have received at least an Oscar nomination.

The supporting cast includes Richard Bradford (Mike), Jack Kehoe (Payne), Brad Sullivan (George), Billy Drago (Nitti) and Patricia Clarkson (Ness' wife). Extremely well crafted and delivered by De Palma, who had a great screenplay (by David Mamet) and a terrific cast with which to work, `The Untouchables' is a powerful, intense film that successfully evokes this particular period in the history of America. And it subtly underscores the true heroics of men like Ness and his crew, who through their fearless dedication possibly made it a little safer for someone to walk down the street, or for an honest man to simply go about the business of making a living-- things too often taken for granted in our busy world today; things that are important, and which makes a film like this so much more than merely entertainment (though it definitely is that). And that's the real magic of the movies. I rate this one 9/10.

This film takes place during the Prohibition, the golden age of American Mafia, and shows the difficulties that law enforcement ​​had to arrest Al Capone, Chicago's biggest mafia boss. Brian de Palma seems to have a powerful attraction for violence and the mafia, this being his second major film on the subject (the first, if I'm not mistaken, was "Scarface"), but there is no doubt that his work was good and deserves congratulations. The story is told from the point of view of law enforcement, which is a novelty since most of the films that focus on Al Capone tend to show his life, or moments of his criminal course. This film shows him as the big villain he was and glorifies police officers, easily transforming Eliott Ness (played brilliantly by Kevin Costner in one of the most interesting works of his career) into a paladin of justice and law. Robert De Niro revisits his gangster movies ("The Godfather", "Goodfellas" etc.) in a curious and comic interpretation of Al Capone, and Sean Connery plays a street policeman of Irish descent. In fact, it was precisely in this character that Connery got his only Oscar, despite all actors have fulfilled my expectations. The film is well constructed, looking to alternate epic action scenes (sometimes recalling in my mind the glory of cavalry battle charges) with moments of great psychological depth and some suspense. At times, however, the film seems a bit forced, with exaggerated appeals to sentimentality, as it does in the final sequence, often parodied or imitated in later films. Another problem with the film is that it is not faithful to historical events. Al Capone's arrest was not like that, nor was Ness behind it. The film contains some scenes of great violence and is inadvisable for children, adolescents and impressionable people.

Director Brian De Palma is the son of a surgeon, and perhaps this explains his high tolerance for the bloodshed that has translated into brutal, raw scenes in 'The Untouchables'. Then again, this film is set during one of the bloodiest chapters of American history and demands unflinching depiction accordingly. Zooming in on prohibition-era Chicago, a dirty, dingy, crime-infested retreat of mafia, the film lets us know a special unit headed by Kevin Costner whose objective is to frame the super villain himself – Al Capone (Robert De Niro).

There are, in effect, three or four things that truly stand out about The Untouchables–an otherwise standard crime by-the-numbers romp–and at least one of them should be attributed to the surface of the spectacle; the costumework and settings are superbly breathed life into, as is De Palma's accolade, with a screen that is awash with lyrical colours and accompanied by a swelly, jazzy moonlit music score. Another worthy accolade is of course Sean Connery as detective Malone – an American-Irish cop on the beat and down with the ways of the street – who may deliver one of the worst accents in film history, but makes up for what he lacks in verbal power with heaps of charisma. Malone is given, by far, the best dialogue in David Mamet's script as when he instructs Kevin Costner on how to get to Capone: "He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue."

Another worthy staple to The Untouchables is its strong individual scenes. In the front row for these sits the notorious baseball bat scene in which a furious Al Capone beats one of his associates' head into a bloody pulp with a bat, right in front of all the guests at the grand dinner table. Robert De Niro gained weight for his role as the crime-lord Al Capone and approaches his character with commitment, but sadly he is ineffective in the film as De Palma does not quite know what to do with him. Instead he craggily intercuts Capone's boisterous speeches and monologues with the template storyline of Kevin Costner's special unit, and the former are incongruous to the key story of 'The Untouchables'. Here it regrettably becomes apparent that the film possesses all the necessary ingredients but no blender in which to stir it – and De Palma is largely to blame for lacking the necessary skill.

Having said that, The Untouchables keeps up the appearance of an epic crime film so rigorously through seamless costumes, stinky Chicago accents, vivid chases and a swarming taste to its sets that for a long time we are led to believe that De Palma has truly done it with this film. Certainly there are many scenes that testify to this and aptly camoflauge the shortcomings, such as the suspenseful pre-battle sequence at the Canadian border in which the Western-loving Costner is up on horseback to ambush the incoming shipment. Another is the first meeting between Andy Garcia and Sean Connery, in which the latter decides to recruit Garcia's Italian character in spite of racial feuding (Connery's supposed to be Irish), and instead because he likes his mouthy, bold attitude. Finally there is the unspeakably epic climax scene that plays on operatic in length through a long, glorious slow-motion capture by a staircase, politely nodding to The Battleship Potemkin's 'Odessa Steps Sequence'.

The whole film is in fact an operatic affair with technicalities deluxe. With its mindboggling ensemble (Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Andy Garcia and Patricia Clarkson) it is easy to see how it is cuing us in to like it. To some extent it succeeds well, for it is suspenseful, but it is not well sewn-together. What good is a De Niro if you are not going to use him opposite the rest? What good is a Kevin Costner (who has never looked so ridiculously handsome in his career for that matter) if you are not going to let him emote? And lastly, what good is a large handful of fully-fledged wonderful scenes if you are not going to juxtapose them with something, instead of dishing them out every now and then to keep our interest?

7 out of 10

Somehow, I just got around to this film after over thirty years. Kevin Costner plays the federal agent Elliot Ness. He pursues Al Capone during Prohibition. His main partner is Sean Connery as a Beat cop in 1930 Chicago. Robert DeNiro is Capone and all three are great. Connery won an Oscar. Ironically, it was tax evasion that was Capone's downfall. This is not a spoiler, as everyone knows the old story. Even so, the Untouchables is a violent and funny adventure. The script is precise and Brian DePalma's direction is as good as expected; never a dull moment. The two hours just flies by.