Review of The Untouchables (1987) by Mark S — 05 May 2010

Brian De Palma's 1987 crime flick The Untouchables is a brilliantly crafted gangster thriller set in Chicago during the late 1920s and early 30s when prohibation was at its high point and illgeally importing alcohol was a massive money-maker. Especially for one gang leader, Al Capone.

The film is focused on a group of cops who have set out to try and bring down Al Capone, the biggest and best gangster in Chicago who was making a considerable amount of money profitting from the prohibition set by the American Government. Eliot Ness played by Kevin Costner was tired of police corruption and needed to create a reliable team of individuals to help bring Al Capones reign to an end. This group would later be known as The Untouchables and in the film consisted of 3 other primary members, Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), George Stone (Andy Garcia) and accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith).

This story is brilliant and knowing it was based on a true story makes it all that more intriguing much like many of the crime/gangster films which are without a doubt some of my favourite films. This film's screenplay is outstanding and with some great performances and impressive set design creates an amazing period feel and a very entertaining film.

I thought that almost everyone was great in this film, especially Andy Garcia and Kevin Costner however, I found Sean Connery to be really annoying in this film and thought that his performance was quite poor especially in comparison to his co-workers. This however, can't take the fact away that this is a very entertaining film.

Much like Brian De Palma's Scarface and many other gangster and crime films, this film is violent. The violence however, isn't as graphic as one would expect considering the amount of deaths that happen such as in my favourite scene where there is a mass shoot out in the train station which has some unbelivable tension and great choreography.

Overall, this is an entertaining film and one of the better American gangster films. While it won't compare to other films of the same genre such as The Godfather or De Palmas previous offering, Scarface its on the same par with Ridley Scott's American Gangster. A great film and a classic within the crime genre.