Untouchables, The - Special Edition [1987]

This film is set in Chicago, during the prohibition, a time were mobsters had enormously increased their influence due to the contraband of alcohol. The most important of all mobsters was Al Capone (wonderfully played by Robert De Niro), whose influence was pervasive and somehow accepted by most as a fact of reality. Capone controlled Chicago with force and bribes, and a philosophy that the scriptwriter of this movie (David Mamet) summed up in a phrase that the actor that plays Capone said: “Somebody messes with me, I'm gonna mess with him”.

Things change when a newcomer to the city, Federal agent Elliot Ness, forms a small group to fight crime and target Capone´s shady dealings. The group formed by Ness, an old Chicago cop (Sean Connery), a rookie police officer (Andy Garcia) and an accountant (Charles Martin Smith), replays in a highly entertaining way Brian de Palma´s cinematographic version of “The untouchables”.

I should point out that you shouldn´t expect a movie that tells you the historical truth about that period in America´s history. If that is your purpose, you are likely to be sorely disappointed. However, if you want to watch a great film, with wonderful performances and marked by a dynamic pace, rent this movie :)

Belen Alcat


The Untouchables   July 18, 2005
Mr J Cronin-Hunter
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

Excellent gangster movie set during prohibition era America about real life government agent Elliot Ness, who together with his unit of 'untouchable' officers brought Chicago mobster Al Capone to justice. In his breakthrough role, Kevin Costner plays Ness, Robert De Niro gives an unforgettable performance as Al Capone and there is also great support from Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia and Sean Connery (who won an Oscar here for his portrayal of veteran cop Malone). This film not only boasts a top notch plot and some excellent acting but also features fantastic music from Ennio Morricone (whose score for Sergio Leone's 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' reached no. 1 in the world pop charts) as well as some unforgettable cinematic moments like the Station steps gunfight. Overall this is a masterpiece from director Brian De Palma, who also made another top quality gangster epic Scarface.


Top gangster flick   March 8, 2003
M J Birch
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

This is such a good film, we have used it for GCSE coursework at school! It brings out the mood of the prohibition years, and emphasises the cult status that Capone had. He was a celebrity, appearing on Tv and in newspapers, and it would have been frustrating for the police to pin anything on him.
Anyway, De Niro as Capone is superb, and the baseball bat scene is quite harrowing and extremely effective, as well as being brutal. Sean Connery, for me, steals the show as a regular on the beat, almost washed up, cop - poor Kevin Costner, its not the first time he has been upstaged (think Alan Rickman, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves!), though Costner still puts in a decent performance.
There is certainly a sense of good guys against bad guys (Costner at one point states: "let's do some good") and this makes the train station scene even more dramatic than it is - the tension is incredible, the baby in the pram works so well, and the shoot out is excellent.
I really find it hard to fault, both for educational and entertainment purposes.


Good versus Evil in a deadly dance of operatic proportions.   April 21, 2004
Themis-Athena (from somewhere between California and Germany)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

Sometimes dubbed "the Master of the Macabre," director Brian De Palma is best known for his enactments of the supernatural ("Carrie"), mania ("Dressed to Kill") - and his mob stories. The latter part of his reputation is primarily grounded on four of his movies from the ten-year period between 1983 and 1993: "Scarface" (1983, starring Al Pacino), "Wise Guys" (1986, starring Danny De Vito, Joe Piscopo and Harvey Keitel), "Carlito's Way" (1993, again starring Pacino) ... and "The Untouchables" (1987), featuring an all-star cast including Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith. Among these, "The Untouchables" stands out as the only movie not primarily told from the gangster's but from the lawmen's perspective - but what it does share with all of De Palma's works is an almost voyeuristic appeal to its audience's visual senses; going far beyond the lavish display of film blood it is most often cited for.

Less fact-based than cinematic grand opera par excellence, the movie takes as its premise the end of the career of Chicago's ganglord of ganglords, Al "Scarface" Capone, who (after a few half-hearted attempts to prosecute him for murder had failed due to the unavailability of witnesses) pled guilty, in 1931, to evading federal income tax, and was sentenced to an 11-year prison term and a $50,000 fine. Capone's downfall was brought about by a group of initially 50 but later only nine Treasury Agents, formed in 1929 (not in 1930, as suggested here) with the express purpose of breaking up his operations, and headed by Eliot Ness, whose 1957 book "The Untouchables" posthumously gave new rise to his fame - Ness died of a heart attack without ever having witnessed the full extent of his book's success - and inspired, inter alia, the like-named 1959 television series starring Robert Stack and Brian De Palma's 1987 movie.

Scripted by Pulitzer Prize winner and Chicago native David Mamet ("Glengarry Glen Ross"), "The Untouchables" is not so much a study in character development as based on a western's classic "good versus evil" setup; although that doesn't mean that its protagonists are two-dimensional in any way. On the contrary: Robert De Niro imbues his Capone with a ruthlessness and glib charm very likely matching those of the real "Scarface," who was known for his little hesitation to commit murder and other acts of violence as much as he cultivated a reputation as a savvy businessman and benefactor of the poor, for example by running several soup kitchens. (And yes, all of De Niro's mannerisms are on full display, too; but rarely have they fitted a role as well as here.) Kevin Costner's Eliot Ness may be a little too assertive - Robert Stack once commented, after several conversations with Ness's nearest and dearest, that the real-life Treasury Agent had been described to him as "rather soft-spoken, but very effective and brave" - but mildness is certainly not the principle trait written into the larger-than-life role of the man who "got" Al Capone, and Costner *is* an effective lead; although he is matched (not entirely sidelined, but darn near outplayed) by Sean Connery, who deservedly won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a National Board of Review Award as the crotchety old-timer Malone who has seen it all, somehow managed to stay both clean and alive, and now lets Ness talk him into becoming his tutor in all things Chicago Gangland. Andy Garcia, in his break-through role, is instantly likable as George Stone, the smart, fast kid from the South Side who doesn't take kindly to put-downs of his origin but can nail a human target with one hand while lying down and holding a baby stroller with the other hand. Charles Martin Smith finally brings humanity and subtle humor to the character probably closest to the real-life "Untouchables," accountant Oscar Wallace, who first has the idea to charge Capone for income tax evasion. Strong performances by Billy Drago as Capone's right-hand man Frank Nitti (who of course was not really thrown off a rooftop by Ness), Richard Bradford as Police Chief Mike Dorsett, Patricia Clarkson as Ness's wife, Jack Kehoe as Capone's bookkeeper Walter Payne and others round out an altogether impressive cast.

Unmistakeably scored by Ennio Morricone (whose style often, and certainly here, doesn't even take a full bar to recognize; and who with an ASCAP Award, a Grammy and a BAFTA Award was the movie's other major winner besides Connery), "The Untouchables" lives off its splendid cinematography, production design - costumes courtesy of Giorgio Armani - and the exquisite timing of its sharp-edged dialogue and editing: Not only is screenwriter Mamet known to have his actors practice their lines according to a metronome; the editing of some of the movie's most memorable scenes has the distinct feeling of a carefully choreographed, veritable ballet. This is particularly true for Malone's death, pointedly set against the aria "Vesti la Giubba" from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci" ("The Clowns"), which is based on a real-life murder and which Capone attends while his lieutenants waylay Malone in his own apartment; and the famous shoot-out in Chicago's Union Station, which turns into a deadly dance of bullets, blood and a baby stroller, shot almost entirely in slow motion.

Paradoxically, the one plot element this movie is most often criticized for - the jury switch at Capone's trial - is one of the few facts that actually did take place (although Capone's attorney would have had to be given the right to conduct a new voir dire). But ultimately, it doesn't even really matter how much of the plot is fact-based and how much fiction: Even if "The Untouchables" doesn't quite reach the mythical status of the "Godfather" trilogy - particularly its Parts 1 and 2 - as the mob movie to end all mob movies, it is one of only a handful other films that at least come close to the proportions of Francis Ford Coppola's epic masterpiece.


The Untouchables   July 13, 2002
Alan Webber (UK)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Brian de Palma's masterful direction and ingenious cinematography, coupled with David Mamet's excellent script powerfully evoke the Prohibition Era of 1930's America. From the opening scene where a genial Al Capone, played by Robert de Niro, gives an interview to the international press, to the final scene where he's convicted for tax evasion in a Chicago courtroom, we're shown the menace and sudden violence lying just beneath the surface of the most notorious gangster of his time.

De Niro's masterful performance is matched by an equally strong supporting cast. Kevin Costner plays young, principled, but naive US Treasury Agent Eliot Ness, who persuades savvy but cynical Chicago beat-cop Sean Connery to join his team in the fight against illegal liquor distribution. Each draws heavily from their relationship with the other as Connery regains his belief in the values that made him a cop, whilst Costner's Ness learns on the job how to handle himself in a world of corruption and violence. The pair recruits Chicago police cadet Andy Garcia, who quickly becomes Connery's protege, whilst the unlikely final member of the team is a Treasury accountant played by Charles Martin Smith.

The film follows this unlikely team of "Untouchables" through some memorable scenes in their fight against the Mob with shootouts from backroom bars, to the Canadian border, a railway station and finally the roof of a courthouse. This film is quite simply one of the best in its genre. Buy it!