Review of Scarface (1983) by Victor T — 10 Jan 2015

With some great movies already in his resume (Blow Out and Carrie for example) Brian De Palma gave us Scarface, back in 1983; a film that is now consider a classic.

The film follows the rise and fall of cuban refugee Tony Montana, set up in 1980, Tony arrives to Miami with the desire of power and money. Soon, a very important drug dealer named Frank Lopez gives him a chance to be someone in the drug business.

First of all, I want to applaud De Palma's direction, the movement of the camera, the cinematography and the edition, which is very important in a movie that is almost 3 hours long. The acting is very good, of course the best is Al Pacino's Tony Montana, which is a very complicated character and I cant think of another actor that could play Montana as well as Pacino. Another important thing for me that this film does incredibly well is telling this story with perfect timing, the story presented here is one of Oliver Stone's greatest screenplays, sure he already had the story from the 1930´s version but the changes he made were perfect to make the story more satisfying and more developed. The biggest problem that I have is that some characters are left in the background when they have potencial of doing more in the story.

One of the best remakes ever made, arguably better than the original. I consider this De Palma's greatest film and it deserves all the praise it receives. If you enjoy crime/mafia films, this is a must see. One of the best films of the genre!