The Untouchables(1987)-Movie Review
IMDB: 7.9/10
Letterboxd: 3.7/5
My Score: 4/5
Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables takes place in 1930s Chicago when the Volstead Act, National Prohibition, turned Chicago into a mobster land. The mob in The Untouchables, although don’t need to mention, Al Capone, who was an “alcohol lord” in the United States. The Untouchables tells us the real story of how the team of four police officers called Untouchables put Al Capone in jail. The team is called “The Untouchables” due to the city people think the mob can’t do anything to them. Starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, Charles Martin Smith, and, the indispensable name of the gangster movies, Robert De Niro, The Untouchables has a tremendous cast which makes the watching movie more cheerful. Moreover, the score of the movie made by the legendary composer Ennio Morricone, who also made the scores of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon A Time In America, Cinema Paradiso, etc., which was hyped me the most about The Untouchables before I watched it. Although there are some ways where I find insufficient in the movie, I generally liked The Untouchables. Anyway, let’s dive into some details about The Untouchables.
First of all, I want to start with what I liked in the movie. The tempo of the movie was great. Once the movie started, the tempo of it instantly finds its ideal speed and this makes the movie much easier to watch. The cinematography and costumes were also outstanding. During the movie, I never questioned whether it is 30s Chicago or not. Finally, the score of Ennio Morricone was great, as always. My favorite songs from the score of Ennio Morricone are “The Death Theme,” “Al Capone,” and “Victorious.” However, in my perspective, The Untouchables contains some serious problems.
Problems of The Untouchables
1)Robert De Niro’s Al Capone
Since the movie is nearly 2 hours long, which is an extremely short time for a police-detective-gangster movie, most of the potential couldn’t be used in the movie. For instance, De Niro’s Al Capone has just a few minutes of screen time. From my point of view, Robert De Niro is an excellent choice to play Al Capone's character. Moreover, I think Robert De Niro believed in his character and project due to he intentionally gained extra pounds to play Al Capone. In addition, even though his underwear didn’t see in the movie, Rober De Niro insisted to wear what Al Capone wore as underwear in his daily life. Unfortunately, although Robert De Niro played Al Capone great in the movie, he got only a few scenes, which seem like random moments from Al Capone’s life, and couldn’t use De Niro’s full potential. Besides not using De Niro’s potential enough, the movie fails us to show how politically powerful and cruel Al Capone was, there is only a scene where Al Capone used violence in the whole movie… Finally, since the movie used De Niro’s character less than it should, we fail to do empathy with Al Capone and eventually see him as a pure devil which is not a human being.
2) Depth Of Characters
Yes, the movie’s main character is Eliot Ness, Kevin Costner, therefore it is obvious why Kevin Costner has more screen time than other actors. However, what I can’t understand is why nearly every scene of the movie is containing Kevin Costner in it. Since nearly every scene contains Kevin Costner, it is really hard for the audience to focus on other characters of the Untouchables team. Moreover, it seems like the movie has no worries to tell the features and stories of other characters in the Untouchables team too. Thereby, we eventually end up just knowing the other three characters from the surface. As a result, it is impossible for the viewer to make empathy with other characters. I am sure that if the movie was more than 120 minutes long, we could’ve been focused on other characters too. So, I think the biggest problem with the movie was time.
Spoilers-As a person who wasn’t familiar with the biography of Al Capone, it really surprised me Al Capone was sent to jail because of his tax problems, not because of he was a leader of one of the largest mobs in the US or he was an alcohol lord. The train station scene and the elevator scene were fabulous. However, as I mentioned before, since I couldn’t do empathy with most of the characters in the movie, I couldn’t felt anything when the squad disbanded at the end of the movie.
In conclusion, although I generally loved the movie, I am still thinking the movie has serious problems and therefore the movie couldn’t reach its full potential. But anyway, If you haven’t seen The Untouchables yet, I suggest you see it due to it is one of the great and important works of Brian De Palma, and also it has an important place in the history of Hollywood.
Hope you enjoyed from my movie review. If you like it, please feel free to press the clap button. If you have something to say about the movie, please feel free to write a comment so we can discuss in the comment section :)
