SCARFACE (1983)
A film review by Mike Watson Copyright 1998 Mike Watson
Rating: 4 out of 5
At one point during Brian De Palma's crime epic SCARFACE, the radiant Michelle Pfeiffer turns to a ranting Al Pacino and pops a question that the audience has no doubt been wanting to ask for themselves: "Can't you stop saying 'fuck' all the time?"
Fucking good question, that. It may not be an honour that instills the filmmakers with pride, but as far as I can tell Oliver Stone's script contains the said expletitive more times than any other film in cinema history.
Yet it would be a shame if bad language is all De Palma's SCARFACE is remembered for, because this is a damn fine gangstar flick. The overall structure is similar to Howard Hawks' 1932 original, but this time the scene has switched to Miami, Florida and our anti-hero's chosen vice is cocaine traffiking. Pacino, sporting a thick Cuban accent, gives one the best performances of his career (Golden Globe nominated) as Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee with a criminal past who flees Castro and comes to America to live the American Dream.
And live it out he does, with lashings of violence, abuse, murder and the funny white powder. From his earliest jobs as a drug runner for various middlemen, Tony Montana makes it clear to everyone he meets that he's not a man to be fucked (sorry). Soon he's the king of the cocaine heap, but his hot head and an increasingly out of control drug addiction prove his undoing. "Never do your own stash", warns one character early in the film. As sure as night follows day, the Emperor Of Miami eventually falls.
Writer Oliver Stone and director Brian De Palma make an explosive combination here. Stone's script offers solid storytelling and some fine character development. Montana is fascinating; uneducated but calculating, a straight shooter who speaks from the heart; an ambitious, violent man yet one with a conscience. A man fiercely protective of his beautiful 20 year old sister, not wanting her to be sucked into the glitzy, dangerous world which he inhabits. Pacino is dynamite, taking to the role with a brooding, bristling energy which in his more recent films has often degenerated into just simple overracting.
Pfeiffer also registers strongly as the gangstar mole with no inner life. Only once does Tony express real affection for her and his desire to have children, and even then you sense all he really wants is a regular screw and a beautiful object to show off to his friends, and she's happy to oblige. This isn't as meaty a role for Pfieffer as Sharon Stone's was in CASINO, but its an effective one nonetheless and she aquits herself well.
As director, De Palma sets up a number of dramatic scenes with his typical stylistic brauva. The escalating tension he creates in various mob situations - a drug deal gone wrong, an assination attempt - is often thrilling, and in this respect he is every bit the equal of Scorese and Coppola.
Where he differs from, say, Coppola's Godfather trilogy is in his overall treatment. Coppola gives his crime sagas an operatic sweep, whereas in SCARFACE De Palma opts for a grittier feel. And it perfectly suits the material. The only major botch is Giorgio Moroder's mostly crap synthesier score. It's just not right, and unfortunately compromises the impact of some otherwise good scenes.
As expected, SCARFACE is very violent at times, but you shouldn't be watching gangster movies if that upsets you. At over two and a half hours in length it's a true epic, and if you're a fan of the genre you'll love f**k-filled minute of it.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews