Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro star in this
excellent movie update of the 1960s The Untouchables TV series. Taking place in
Chicago in 1930 during the prohibition, the Untouchables deals with Treasury
agent Eliot Ness (Costner, in a career-making role) who is assigned to battle
the liquor bootleggers. However, the earnest and idealistic Ness runs aground on
his very first raid, where a warehouse suspected of containing booze turns out to
have nothing more than umbrellas. The bootleggers knew he was coming well in
advance and were well prepared for him. And when you consider whom Ness is up against, it should come as no
surprise that his struggle to uphold the law would become nearly insurmountable. Ness'
adversary is none other than Al Capone, AKA "Scarface" (marvelously played by
Robert DeNiro), the legendary crime boss whose control over Chicago was so
complete that he was known as the de facto mayor.
After meeting up with an old street-smart cop named James Malone (Sean Connery in his
Oscar-winning performance), who becomes a mentor for Ness in the ways of life on
the rough and tumble streets of Chicago, they begin to assemble a special squad
of outsiders, men who are not a part of the corruption that is rampant in the
Chicago police department. Since they cannot be bribed, they are considered to
be "untouchable" by the crooked cops and politicians who are in Capone's pocket.
With a young Italian-American police cadet named George Stone (Andy Garcia) who
is a crack shot, and a nebbish Treasury Department accountant named Oscar
Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) on their team of Untouchables, Ness begins to
finally strike at Capone right where it hurts: in his wallet. Yet while they
gain ground in their gangland battle, they also incur the wrath of Capone
himself, and as this urban war escalates into bloodshed, Eliot Ness stands to
lose a lot more than his reputation.
Released in 1987, The Untouchables is still a fine film that tells a gripping
story. It views the fight to bring Capone to justice as a mythic struggle worthy
of the classic Hollywood westerns (and that spirit is invoked in a rousing scene
on the US/Canadian boarder, where Ness and his men literally ride horses into a
gunfight). Director Brian De Palma helms the film with great style, ably building
suspense--especially in the now-classic train station scene, which was inspired
by a similar sequence in the silent classic Battleship Potemkin, where Ness and
Stone wind up having a blazing gun battle with Capone's gangsters while a young
mother and her baby are caught in the crossfire. Playwright/filmmaker David
Mamet's script is as intelligent as it is exciting, and even the actors in
smaller roles are superb. One such example is Billy Drago's great, oily performance as
Frank Nitti, Capone's number one enforcer.
The DVD has been recently re-released with new "making of" documentaries that
examine the behind the scenes goings-on of the film. They are delightfully blunt,
with the filmmakers confessing that they were not big fans of the 1960s TV show
per se, but that they simply wanted to bring the epic confrontation between Ness
and Capone to the big screen. The "making of" documentaries also deal with De Palma's
desire to cast DeNiro as Capone even after British actor Bob Hoskins (The Long
Good Friday) got the part (Hoskins was later paid off by the studio without
having done any work on the film at all). The original "making of" featurette,
"The Men" is also included. There are no audio commentaries. So if you're
looking for a stirring good vs. evil story, look no further than The
Untouchables, where legends clashed right in the very streets of 1930s Chicago. --SF
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