Scarface (18.)
Directed by Brian De Palma.
Starring Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, F Murray Abraham. 170 mins. 1983.
Considering that it recently topped an online poll as the greatest gangster film of all time, it’s worth remembering that when it came out Scarface got terrible reviews. I can even remember the final line of the NME write up, “De Palma, que pasa?” And they were right: it was then, and is now, a terrible film.
I think maybe people like this tale of Cuban hood Montana (Pacino in his first, full on, Who Ha performance) made good in the States, because they remember the good bits – the chainsaw scene, “say hello to my little friend” - and forget what a drag it is in between.
The biggest flaw is that you are severely short changed by Oliver Stone’s script. At the moment of his ascension to real power a blimp appears in the sky above Montana, like a big speech bubble, spelling out the message “The World Is Yours.” Not so subtle, but it would have been a nice touch if the whole film wasn’t people spelling things out for you: “You know what capitalism is? Getting F***ed!”
Hanna Barbera might have been able to make of something of it but they knew better than to try to make a cartoon that lasts almost three hours.
Everybody in the movie is stupid. Montana refers every problem to the council of his testicles and after cursory consideration the testes always come up with the same solution to every situation – do the most ballsy, bloody and unsubtle thing imaginable. So given that he is utterly predictable it is surely impossible that someone wouldn’t have moved against him long before he reached the top.
But then as everybody else is equally and ostentatiously stupid perhaps not; when two assassins try to kill Montana in a nightclub, when he’s all alone and so off his head he can barely keep his eyes open, it would surely be very simple for them to saunter discretely up to his table, pop him and make their escape. Instead they decimate the entire nightclub and kill almost everybody except Montana. They even mow down the nightclub clown.
What kind of films kills an innocent bystander clown? What kind of nightclub has a clown? Maybe it was symbolic, a subtle cue to audiences that this film can’t be as dumb as it appears. It must have been intended as some kind of innovative new form - a parody that doesn’t want to share the joke.
Scarface (18.)
Directed by Brian De Palma.
Starring Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, F Murray Abraham. 170 mins. 1983.
Considering that it recently topped an online poll as the greatest gangster film of all time, it’s worth remembering that when it came out Scarface got terrible reviews. I can even remember the final line of the NME write up, “De Palma, que pasa?” And they were right: it was then, and is now, a terrible film.
I think maybe people like this tale of Cuban hood Montana (Pacino in his first, full on, Who Ha performance) made good in the States, because they remember the good bits – the chainsaw scene, “say hello to my little friend” - and forget what a drag it is in between.
The biggest flaw is that you are severely short changed by Oliver Stone’s script. At the moment of his ascension to real power a blimp appears in the sky above Montana, like a big speech bubble, spelling out the message “The World Is Yours.” Not so subtle, but it would have been a nice touch if the whole film wasn’t people spelling things out for you: “You know what capitalism is? Getting F***ed!”
Hanna Barbera might have been able to make of something of it but they knew better than to try to make a cartoon that lasts almost three hours.
Everybody in the movie is stupid. Montana refers every problem to the council of his testicles and after cursory consideration the testes always come up with the same solution to every situation – do the most ballsy, bloody and unsubtle thing imaginable. So given that he is utterly predictable it is surely impossible that someone wouldn’t have moved against him long before he reached the top.
But then as everybody else is equally and ostentatiously stupid perhaps not; when two assassins try to kill Montana in a nightclub, when he’s all alone and so off his head he can barely keep his eyes open, it would surely be very simple for them to saunter discretely up to his table, pop him and make their escape. Instead they decimate the entire nightclub and kill almost everybody except Montana. They even mow down the nightclub clown.
What kind of films kills an innocent bystander clown? What kind of nightclub has a clown? Maybe it was symbolic, a subtle cue to audiences that this film can’t be as dumb as it appears. It must have been intended as some kind of innovative new form - a parody that doesn’t want to share the joke.
