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The Untouchables (1987)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
September 30th, 2007
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'The Untouchables' is a superb crime drama, and a great action movie, handsomely mounted and skillfully shot by director Brian de Palma. It is based on the true story of Elliot Ness, a federal agent who went head-to-head with notorious gangster Al Capone (De Niro), who makes a fortune in bootlegging during Prohibition, smuggling and selling alcohol, and a host of other illicit activities. Capone is a nasty piece of work, arrogant and cruel, but also charismatic, he loves the press and talks to reporters every chance he gets, to keep himself in the spotlight, since he is confident that no evidence can ever be found to convict him of anything.
He bribes police officials and judges to stay out of trouble, but Ness and his squad prove to be incorruptible. Ness, as played by Kevin Costner, is devoted to justice, and refuses to back down in the face of threats from Capone, which are carried out with relish by his faithful hitman Frank Nitti (Billy Drago), who always wears a white suit and has a sneer on his face. Nitti is a ruthless killer, who really has nothing on Capone, but Capone doesn't want to get his hands dirty, though in one brutal scene, he bashes a disloyal henchman's head in with a baseball bat, much to the dismay of his other subordinates, who are all in attendance, to know what happens when you cross Capone. Ness is not willing to bend the law to catch Capone, but this is what he is advised to do by Malone (Connery, in an Oscar-winning role), a tough street cop whose occasionally excessive tactics prove effective in disrupting Capone's operations.
Connery is great, though I do not know if he really deserved an Academy Award for what appears to be a fairly standard performance from him. De Niro is a scene stealer, making Capone loathsome but also strangely likable. Costner is slightly bland, never exhibiting much emotion as Ness, but then maybe being straight-faced was part of Ness's success. Drago is nothing but loathsome as Nitti, who gets a satisfying comeuppance. Andy Garcia is effective as George Stone, a fresh recruit who teams up with Ness and gets a chance to show off his expert marksman skills.
There is plenty of violence to be found here, it is stylish and entertaining, with a particularly good, though not overly subtle, recreation of the Odessa Steps sequence from Potemkin, the classic silent film from Sergei Eisenstein. Most will recognize this when it occurs. The ending involves a courtroom sequence where Capone is hauled in for tax evasion, once his accountant is bullied into testifying against him, and I really like how Ness solves the problem of the bought jury, whose verdict is already determined before the case even begins. Those looking for Capone to die in a shoot-out or something like that will be disappointed, but this is historically accurate, at least in this sense, and Capone goes on to die in prison from syphilis, though we never see this.
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