Review of The Untouchables (1987) by Simeon D — 28 Feb 2010

I had high hopes for this movie, being a fan of Brian DePalma's other movie, Scarface, but I was somewhat disappointed at how this turned out. It's a story about a gang of cops (Costner, Connery, Garcia) who become fed up with Al Capone's ruthless violence during the prohibition era, and decide to find a way to get him in jail. The sets, costumes, and images of 1930's Chicago were very well portrayed, the action scenes were near flawless, and Sean Connery gave a wonderful, heartfelt performance.

But Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, and even Robert DeNiro gave some tired acting with some generic emotion and it seemed obvious that they were reading from a script, where as Connery delivered his lines near perfectly and got completely into his character. Don't get me wrong! They had fine performances, but there were just some really low points.

Otherwise, the plot was enticing and made the movie worth watching. Also, DePalma obviously wanted to make the four lead actors become a "super-group" and be best friends so that the audience could sympathize their hardships; but I felt that the only relationship between them that worked was Connery's and Costner's mentor student relationship, and that didn't even work that well because of Costner's poor acting.

The one thing that bugged me the most was the fact that the musical score was so uplifting and joyful, yet it played through all of the ruthlessly violent scenes, and this gave the movie a tongue and cheek feeling that I believe was not originally intended. Nonetheless, the reason I'm giving it such a low rating is because of the somewhat mediocre acting (besides Connery) and the bleak script. 66/100.